Waiting in the Quiet
by Eirian Erisdar
Summary: What greater honour is there for Gren than to serve the general whom he loves, even if she is unaware of the depth of his regard? First six chapters written before season 2, but will follow canon as closely as possible as new seasons come as a slow-burn gremaya AU.
1. The Diplomat and the Commander

**A/N:** I've uploaded five chapters to my tumblr already, but since FFN isn't replying to any requests to open a fic archive for _The Dragon Prince,_ I thought I'd post to misc. cartoons and change categories when they finally get it done. Have some gremaya. Enjoy.

 **Edit 17/2/19:** I wrote the first six chapters of this fic before season 2. I will be tweaking some minor things in the canon timeline to fit what I've already written, but in general this will follow canon as closely as possible.

* * *

 **Waiting in the Quiet**

 _Eirian Erisdar_

* * *

 _Chapter 1: The Diplomat and the Commander_

* * *

Newly-minted Second Lieutenant Gren turned up on the first day of his assignment to the Standing Battalion alone, on horseback, ginger hair smashed into a chaos of spikes by wind and gale, new, unstained armour sitting on his shoulders with the unfamiliar ease of something trained into him, and not out of long practice.

He saluted the sentry sharply as he rode up to camp, trying with difficulty to avoid staring at the bright crimson glow of the border just visible on the horizon; the river of molten rock that belched gases and consumed men whole, as the horror stories children shared between themselves said, back home in the provincial towns.

"Fresh out of training, are we?" the sentry said, his battle-worn pauldron shifting on his shoulder as he broke the wax seal of Gren's letter. The markings on his armour marked him a Second Lieutenant.

Gren nodded once, a hand on the helmet on his hip. He had not read the letter, of course; but he hoped that he could at least present himself in a manner that showed more than his eighteen years. It certainly didn't help that his freckled cheeks and cheerful demeanor often had fishwives back home thinking he was three years younger than he really was.

The sentry's lips twitched, pulling at the scar that ran across his chin. "You must have been quite the hotshot at the academy," he said. "You've been assigned to Commander Amaya. That doesn't usually happen right off the bat for fresh graduates."

Something in Gren's stomach leapt into the air and proceeded to hurtle through the stratosphere, screeching all the way.

Commander. _Amaya._

Legend on the battlefield. Sister to the Queen. Keen of eye and steady of hand, single-handedly held countless border skirmishes against the forces of Xadia–

"Really?!" came the squeak before Gren could stop it; he winced and snapped his mouth shut.

"Really," the sentry deadpanned, grinning at Gren's obvious surprise. "Try not to do that again, and _especially_ not in front of the commander. Her tent is down that way. I assume you've been taught basic sign-language at the academy? Yes? Take the letter, introduce yourself, wait for her orders."

"Yes, sir," Gren replied, taking back the letter with numb fingers. Clicked his tongue. Nudged his horse down the row of tents.

 _Commander Amaya._

On the day of Gren's graduation, his barrack-mates back at the training academy had marveled over his assignment to the Standing Battalion; an elite force on the border itself, well over a day's ride from the capital. And what was more – it was where the sister to the Queen chose to remain, year after long year. Commander Amaya held the border, the people often murmured, while her sister Queen Sarai commanded the home forces; both devastatingly precious to Katolis itself. It was even rumoured that the commander would be given commission as General soon. The war demanded it, and her talents were more than suitable. If she was made General, she would be the youngest ever to reach that rank.

But never had Gren expected that he would be _personally_ assigned to–

And then he saw her.

She was sitting before her tent – made of equally unassuming canvas just like the hundreds of others around her – and the soothing rasp of stone on metal filled the air as she ran a whetstone over her the blade balanced over her armoured knee.

Her hair was cut short, as he had heard, and fell in a sharp line on her left almost to the angle of her jaw. On her right, it barely touched the top of her ear. Her face was unmarked, except by the faint red tint of the winds that so howled at night across the borderlands here – but there was such an smooth, curled grace to her movements that she seemed at any moment able to leap into action, a figure of lethal grace.

And then she noted the shadow of horse and rider that skirted in front of her sabatons, and looked up.

And Gren became aware that he was staring.

He got off his horse. Quickly, too.

She was regarding him with a cool raised eyebrow, a flicker of something else in her eyes. It might have been humour, but it was gone too quickly for Gren to decipher.

Gren bowed, left hand to his chest as he had been taught in the academy, and held out his commission letter with his right.

A scratched bracer entered his field of vision. Accepted the letter.

Gren took it as his cue to straighten and stand at parade rest.

The commander's eyes flickered over his parade-perfect posture once more as she perused the letter. A smile – a true smile, Gren was sure of it now, full of wicked mischief – curved across her face, and she rose, set the letter aside, and raised her hands.

Every single sign language lesson he had ever attended at the military academy flashed through Gren's mind in that one moment, and he found himself suddenly sure that it was not enough.

"Introduce yourself," the commander signed, hands nimble and strong even in layers of gauntleted metal and thick leather.

Right. He could do that – that was the first lesson one ever learnt in sign language, after all. "My name is Gren," he replied, fingers horribly slow and encumbered in his new armoured gloves. "Second lieutenant. At your service. It's an honour."

He is sure he garbled that last bit a little, but the commander nodded, seemingly unsurprised at his struggle, and continued, "The academy says you–"

And just like that, he was lost. Embarrassingly so. His eyes darted between each sign without comprehension.

Gren opened his mouth automatically. Closed it again, brought up his hands–

But the commander had already held up a hand to still his motion, and reached for the parchment and ink set to the side with the other.

Gren blinked. He had not even noticed it was there.

She held up a line of writing.

 _The academy says you're quite the diplomat._

Her handwriting was terrible, and Gren remembered something someone had told him when he was younger – how those with quick minds had the messiest writing. At that time hadn't known if it was a jab at his own perfect calligraphy – he had _hobbies_ , and calligraphy was one of them – but the commander's chicken scratch was just so…her.

"Thank you. Yes, I try." Gren replied, forcing his hands to move faster. Mentally, he kicked himself; he should have _known_ to practice more in armour. What did he think he would be wearing to battle – leather tunics and thin gloves?

 _Find the quartermaster. He'll assign you to a tent. You may join training drills after midday meal._

He snapped to attention. "Yes, sir!" he said, with his voice and hands.

The commander's smile widened imperceptibly, and she penned another line. She narrowed her eyes, clapped him on the shoulder once, and held up the parchment.

Later, Gren would look back on that moment and realise that he was not quite sure if she was going to kill him or not (and part of him wasn't even sure if he minded if she did) but even as his head screamed at him to look at the weight on his shoulder _(because Commander Amaya was touching his shoulder the legend was touching his shoulder what should he DO),_ sense won over and he looked at her words instead.

 _And loosen up, soldier._

"Yes, sir," he said immediately, snapping to attention again, before blinking and realising that actually, no, that was the exact opposite of what she said to do–

She caught his frozen expression and laughed once.

And Gren just–

Forgot to think.

Didn't think, even as he bowed his leave and led his horse away by the reins. Her laugh was a bright, shining thing, a roar more than anything, that the ladies of court would call _boisterous_ with disapproving sniffs, and men would call _hearty_ ; a soldier's confident laugh. It was musical, but not in that flute-like way he'd heard men back home speak of sweethearts' laughter; it was more like the call of a war horn than a silver flute.

It was a laugh that was not diminished by constricting things such as propriety, because Commander Amaya couldn't hear it for herself and likely wouldn't have cared what people would have said even if she could.

And it suited Commander Amaya perfectly.

* * *

That afternoon, after he was settled and his horse watered, he stood in a ring of fellow soldiers and watched as the commander pounded a half-dozen men into the dust.

At once.

With nothing but her gloved fists.

And then she straightened and began systematically deconstructing each participant's mistakes with an encouraging expression and hands that flickered between sign language and parchment, when the explanations got too complicated for the soldiers' limited vocabulary.

Gren watched, slack-jawed. Commander Amaya was…wow.

Right, so Gren might have been a _little_ starstruck.

 _And then–_

And then she spied him in the crowd, held out a gloved hand, and beckoned him once, a clear challenge in her eyes. The gathered soliders exploded into good-natured teasing at their newest recruit.

 _What._

A heavy hand thumped into Gren's back. "It's tradition! Newest recruit gets to spar the Commander!"

Gren's disbelief distilled itself into something more like pure, ice-fed fear. Edged with not a little awe and exhilaration.

Okay. Right. He was doing this. Granted, he was probably going to die doing so (the second time he contemplated his mortality in the past hour, no less) _but what a way to go_ , right?

A dulled practice sword was pushed into his hand. Gren hid his expression by squashing his helmet onto his head; the Commander remained helmet free, dark hair stirring in the wind, a wicked smile of challenge on her lips as she tested the weight of her own dulled blade.

Gren settled into ready position, brought his blade up to guard, blinked once–

And he was suddenly flat on his back in the hard-packed dirt, ears ringing, the breath driven out of him all at once.

Dragon. Spit.

He had the sudden and very bizarre urge to laugh through the bruise that must be forming on his chest.

Commander Amaya was amazing _._ Astonishing. Astounding. those were only the adjectives beginning with _A–_

Gren yanked off his helmet, wheezed into the cool air. The Commander was crouched at his side, a knowing grin on her lips. She signed something – a word he saw, barely an hour ago.

Ah. The colour rose in his cheeks, turned his ears the shade of his hair.

" _A diplomat, indeed. On your feet."_ She completed the last word, extended a hand to him.

He took it, surprised when she reached further and turned it to a soldier's forearm grasp, and allowed her to pull him to his feet.

Her eyes were warm and firm like a summer storm, and it was only as Gren stood opposite her with their hands in a warrior's hold that he knew, suddenly, that there was more to her than the sharp flicker in her eyes – that one could understand her further than the simpler shapes of her signs.

And yet, here, no one did; each soldier knew enough sign language to understand battlefield commands and basic military terms, but not enough to understand _her._ Not truly.

Commander Amaya, whom Gren was suddenly quite sure that he would wholeheartedly die for.

Her eyebrows rose as she watched his face.

He schooled his expression before the thought made its way there, but as their hands loosened and their forearms slipped away from under leather gloves, Gren was struck by the complete and utter determination that _he had to do better._

In a camp such as this, there had to be at least one book on sign language.

If there wasn't, he was spending his first self-earned coin on procuring one. As soon as possible.

* * *

It was hard work. Gren practiced each word and each phrase again and again, first with his hands free and unfettered by gloves and armour, and then again with his arms weighed down by bracers and gauntlets, fingers and wrists dull and frustratingly clumsy at first and then slowly slipping into the supple grace that the commander's hands had as they spoke. Gren lost count of the number of long nights he spent huddled in his tent in front of a guttering tallow candle, squinting at the tiny letters and detailed diagrams until his eyes grew gritty. During the day he watched the Commander speak as often as possible, traced the shapes and movements of her hands with sharp, blue eyes. The way she spoke was beautiful – fluid and graceful, like the way she fought.

And then came the day he realised he could learn this new language well enough in theory, but there was no possibility of fluency until he had enough practice.

Which only meant one thing.

His calligrapher's hand and diplomat's way of putting words (if he wished) had granted him an irreplaceable position at battalion command (or a nicer way of saying he was very, very good at paperwork) and so, a day or so after his new resolution, he found himself giving a report to Commander Amaya as to the progression of documents for the king.

The Commander glanced over his desk as she swept back the flap of the command tent and strode over to him – likely looking for a written report. Finding none, she raised her head and skewered him with those clear, intelligent eyes that Gren always found a challenge to meet – electrifying and terrifying all at once.

Gren gulped once, stood, and raised his hands.

"The documents are progressing ahead of schedule," he said, hands faltering once as they skipped between a sign before soldiering on. "However, I'm sure you're aware of the political component regarding our recent combined exercises with the Southern Guard, and I thought that we might take more care over the wording regarding those, in case the King chooses to share the report with any of his advisors.

There had been a curve to corner of the commander's lips as Gren began to speak, but now the grin reached her eyes; she halted him with a raised hand. "You've been practicing," she said, hands moving with that grace that Gren had so come to love watching; words formed into dance, just as spoken speech was a song.

He nodded. "But I think I need more." He hoped she would understand his unspoken question.

His hopes were dashed. She _did_ understand, but she was not letting him off the hook that easily. She raised an eyebrow, expectantly.

Gren met her steady gaze with his own exhausted one, and thought, _Very well, then._

He thanked hours of practice that his hands were steady as he asked, "If I could make a request, sir. Would it be alright if you helped me practice?"

The commander nodded, and said, almost too fast for Gren's tired eyes to follow, "Evening meal. You know the fire-pit I favour?"

Gren nodded. The adrenalin was draining out of him; his legs started to feel more like jelly than anything.

"Meet me there. We can discuss your accent, and more."

Gren blinked, hands falling to his side. _I have an accent?_

"Yes you do," the commander said, and Gren added _mind-reading_ to the list of things Commander Amaya could apparently do. "I'll see you then."

And then she was gone again.

The tent flap swung shut behind her.

Gren realised, belatedly, that the entire tent was staring at him.

He sat down in a flurry of armour and buried himself in his paperwork, ears burning.

"You up to mischief?" Corvus teased as he passed by, young face smiling, and Gren denied his friend an answer; doing so would only invite more teasing.

His stomach did not stop flipping until dusk.

* * *

It became a nightly ritual, their conversations over evening meal. Meals this far out near the border were simple things; pieces of meat fried on hot stones pushed near the fire-pits, simple stews from rare game hunting parties encountered in the wilds.

They spoke of the practical side of things, at first; refining Gren's signing, teaching new words. And then as Gren's fluency improved, they began to speak other things – Gren's childhood home, their shared preference for wind and sky, Amaya's fiery resolve to serve Katolis born of her love for her sister; conversations that only they could understand, the two people most proficient in their language in the entire camp. Amaya had parchment and ink at her side their first few meetings, but as Gren's hunger for new words and new expressions increased, and their conversations picked up speed, the parchment more often than not remained untouched on the log she sat on.

If anyone ever asked him afterward, Gren never could quite point out when she became _Amaya_ to him, and not _the commander_ ; now he never saluted her beyond a perfunctory nod when he showed up to their fire-pit bearing that evening's food, and she never expected him to call her _sir_.

People whispered curiously at first when it became apparent that this would become a habit of the two of them.

"What were you talking about?" Corvus called once as Gren moved past him to scour his and Amaya's finished bowls with sand.

"Oh, anything and everything," Gren replied. "She's so amazing to talk to, and there's so much she's seen."

"You're shaping up to be quite the fluent sign language speaker."

"Not quite, but I plan to be," Gren murmured. "Eventually."

And so the months swept by. Their conversations grew more complex and more often than not left them laughing – Amaya's laughter her true voice, and Gren so adored it for its candor.

And then there were the times that Amaya and most of the camp would ride away to war; sometimes Gren accompanied them, and sometimes not, but even if he did go he remained in the temporary camps behind the battlefield itself; he was not a combatant.

Those days he waited for the carrion birds to start to descend over the horizon; and then watched for the sight of Amaya's banner over the crest of the hill, a tightness in his chest he could not explain until he saw the battalion return, triumphant.

The nights grew longer, and the days shorter; midwinter approached. Gren became attuned to Amaya's way of speech, the tone in her words; how the smallest lift of her eyebrow or tilt of her shoulders could mean an entire different emphasis, how the simplicity of certain words in sign language did not impede her when she meant to sign a synonym that she did not bother to spell, not when Gren could understand her meaning so clearly.

But as the days grew colder, Gren often woke with half-frozen hands; he was grateful for his fur-lined under-armour gloves from his hometown tailor, whose work was self-proclaimed "the best in all of Katolis". Gren's fingers usually regained their dexterity in minutes, as long as he warmed them by a fire-pit before putting on his gloves.

Amaya, he noticed, had taken to blowing on her hands when he was speaking during their conversations; her gloves were of fine make and no doubt fur-lined as well, but seemed to work rather less well than Gren's did. Her signing was not slow in the slightest, but there were moments where he noticed a lack of the liquid motion that her signed voice should have.

And so, as midwinter approached, Gren was left with a dilemma.

But really, it was not a dilemma at all; what was half a month's pay so that his commander could speak?

He put in the order with the next departing rider, and pocketed his – rather lighter – coin pouch without the slightest regret.

Then he hastened back to his tent to retrieve one of Amaya's spare gauntlets, which he had filched behind her back in order to take measurements from. If she found out she was likely to verbally flay him alive. Here he was, risking life and limb for a midwinter present, of all things – but it would be worth it.

The package came the afternoon of midwinter's day, to Gren's great relief. He checked that all was in order, re-bound the package, and tucked it under his cloak as he headed towards the fire-pits, where soldiers were huddled side-by-side in the wintry air. Snow had begun to fall; Gren's boots crunched through a new white covering.

It was only as he spied Amaya's distinctive silhouette sat before their preferred fire-pit did Gren realise that he had not really thought this through.

Did soldiers give each other presents for midwinter's day?

Did… _junior_ _officers_ give their superiors presents for midwinter's day?

The thought was as jarring as it was sudden. He slowed. Stopped. Traced with his gaze the snowflakes settling on Amaya's pauldrons; watched as she brushed the covering off and breathed over her hands, rubbing them together.

But _friends_ did.

Friends gave each other presents for midwinter's day.

That was enough.

Gren moved into the circle of firelight, and Amaya, noticing the new shadow at the periphery of her vision, shifted to the side to let him sit.

"Happy midwinter," Gren said, once he had shook his hands free of his cloak.

"Happy midwinter," she echoed, the corner of her mouth curving over her quick hands.

In the face of that almost-smile, Gren found himself grinning irresistibly as well; and, ever vigilant, Amaya noticed.

She raised an eyebrow and a hand. "What?"

Gren slipped the package out from under his cloak and held it out; she accepted it with curiosity in her gaze.

Amaya placed it on her lap so she could speak. "What is this?"

"A gift," Gren replied.

He could see she is surprised now, though it was likely that none of the others nearby could see it; it was only Gren, who knew how each part of her expression and the smallest changes in the way she carried herself held meaning.

She untied the wrappings, and the surprise in her eyes melted into fond understanding as they settled on the gloves – fur-lined, close-stitched, and supple, yet tough enough to withstand years worn under armour.

Amaya raised her gaze to meet Gren's, and he was suddenly hit with the urge to explain himself; he signed with such attempted speed that he slurred over the words like he had not done in months. "The winter has been growing colder and I noticed your gloves had grown worn and it was affecting your signing and I know a tailor back home so I thought you could do with some new–"

The last part was cut off as Amaya placed her new gloves to the side, reached out to still his hands, and very deliberately pulled him into a hug.

Gren forgot to breathe.

It was short thing, barely an instant; but her head fitted into the curve of the pauldron at his shoulder, and he hugged her back automatically before he really knew what he was doing, only that she was there and so was he, and his mind had temporarily lost all ability to function.

He hadn't exactly forgotten that component of hero-worship that fired up within him on that first day.

But even through all the layers of armour, it was warm.

He remembered to breathe. Her armour smelt like dust and iron, and the battles he could only observe from afar.

She drew back, slipped off her old gloves, and pulled on the new ones. The leather gleamed as she signed, "Thank you, my friend."

"You are welcome," he returned, and pressed his hand to his chest as he inclined his head.

He had not ridden to the border expecting that Commander Amaya would become his closest friend, and he was willing to bet that she had not expected a green recruit to become her dearest friend, either.

But here, on midwinter's evening, with warm stew in their bellies and good conversation in their hands, Gren could not imagine it any different.

* * *

 **Next Chapter:** Amaya comes to a realisation that Gren's new sign language skills are invaluable, and with time, Gren realises something of his own.

I've posted the first five chapters to my tumblr account, but I'll upload all existing chapters to FFN, one per day. I'm halfway through writing the sixth chapter and that should be up soon, too. My tumblr url is _eirianerisdar()tumblr()com._

Chapter six should take us to the end of Season 1, and then I'll get to updating _The Silent Song!_ Reviews are appreciated!


	2. And the Voice Listened

_Chapter 2: And the Voice Listened_

* * *

Two things occurred in Gren's second year of service.

One: Amaya became a General.

And two: They both came to a realisation as to the usefulness of Gren's fluency in sign language.

It happened like so:

"General, I don't see why you would refuse to allow my personal guard to ride with you into battle! They are all well-trained, I assure you!"

Amaya stood with her hands clasped behind her back, blue-accented armour sleek and freshly oiled, and stared down the shapes the visiting noble's mouth made as he spoke with agitation.

Stood a few paces away and quite invisible to a noble of such stature, Gren watched as Amaya raised steady hands and replied, "I do not doubt their training, my lord. But they do not know the border, and we have orders to protect you while you rest here before continuing your journey north. It would be foolhardy to–"

Her signing was forcefully broken off as the man batted her hands aside and continued his tirade, the shapes of his moving lips curling and slipping in their anger.

"I don't understand what you're saying," the noble snarled. "Surely you wouldn't deny an esteemed guest the opportunity to further train his personal guard?"

Something flashed in Amaya's eyes – something fiery and quick and dangerous, but it was gone again so quickly that Gren doubted if anyone in the command tent saw it except him, who knew her so well. She waved away her guards (whose hands had been drifting towards their swords), and reached to the sideboard for parchment and ink.

Gren saw the noble's frustration before the man could open his mouth again, and his gut seethed at it with sudden vehemence.

He took three steps forward to draw level with Amaya so she could see him speak, shrugging off Corvus's questioning hand on his shoulder as he did so. _"The general said,"_ Gren said, dropping his voice into the cool control that Amaya had exuded as she had signed those words, "that she does not doubt the training of your men. But they do not know the border and we have orders to protect you as you rest here on your journey." He paused. "My lord," he added, belatedly.

The noble was staring at him with such an expression of silenced shock that Gren bit back a laugh, smoothing over his features.

Amaya moved in the corner of his vision; attuned to her as he was out of habit, it seemed all too natural to turn slightly towards her and incline his head expectantly.

There was a spark of wonder in Amaya's eyes as met his gaze, but then she turned back to the visiting noble, dropped her eyebrows, and began to sign again, quicker and more freely than before, and Gren's sharp blue eyes tracked each movement with the ease of long practice.

He began to speak. "My lord, I understand your wishes. But the situation on the border hangs in fine balance, and I can ill spare men to stay here with you should a true need for battle arise. In that case, your guards know you well and can best protect you by your side here, in camp–"

Gren broke off here, because the noble did what nobles did best when they heard something they did not like – interrupt.

"I don't think you're being forthright with me, General," the noble hissed, leaning forward – though admittedly to little effect, as tall as Amaya was. "You _will_ allow my guards to–"

Amaya's hands moved sharply.

"And _you_ ," Gren said in a voice of steel, knowing the emphasis on that second word by the rise of Amaya's chin, " _You,_ lord, will follow the orders of your king. As I am." The noble reared back, staring at her with wide eyes. Gren would wager half a month's wages that the man had not expected to be interrupted by someone who could not speak out loud.

Amaya took a slow breath. Gren reined back the ice in his voice accordingly.

"I have orders to protect you while you are here, from the king himself. I know from experience the best way to do so will be to keep the fighting away from you. Would you prefer that in switching out two dozen of my best men with your guards, a single moonshadow elf might slip through the new gap in the battlefield and slaughter you in your sleep? Two dozen unwarned men will not stop a determined elf."

The noble blanched. "Of-of course not," he stammered. "I'll…I'm fatigued, from my journey. I'll retire now."

Amaya grinned. There was a touch of predatory grace to it.

"Sweet dreams–" Gren bit back a yelp as he read Amaya's next word, and hastily amended, "Uh. My lord."

He glanced at Amaya to find her raising a challenging eyebrow, but she did not berate him.

The noble left, stumbling slightly.

Gren became suddenly aware that he was stood at the forefront of the party; shoulder-to-shoulder with General Amaya as a lowly Second Lieutenant, while her command chain fanned out behind them.

He blushed.

Amaya considered him for a moment before jerking her head in the direction of the tent flap.

Gren followed her out into the cool air of late winter, towards the edge of the camp, where the trenches and wire of the camp defenses stretched out towards the direction of the Breach. There, he stood with his hands folded behind his back and waited.

Amaya did not say anything for a long moment; only looked out across no-man's-land towards the reddish glow of magma, far in the distance. The winter wind caught her hair and swept it past her cheekbone.

Then she turned to him, and Gren found himself skewered in place by a look so sure and bright that he thought he might spontaneously combust.

"Gren, I'm promoting you," Amaya began.

He stared at her hands. Nothing about that made sense – he hadn't accomplished anything in his year in service except to improve the paperwork chain of a battalion that saw action as often as this one – an achievement in circumventing red tape, but certainly not anything worth lauding.

She saw his confused surprise and blasted through it as bluntly as one of her famed shield-rams. "You're going to be my interpreter, Captain Gren."

 _Interpreter._

 _Captain._

 _What happened to First Lieutenant?_

Gren's mouth fell open. "Uhhhhh," he found himself saying. His hands were twitching. He should say something with them, but the only thing coming out of him was this garbled syllable from his lips.

Amaya smirked, reached out with a blue-gloved hand, and lifted his chin so his teeth clicked together. When her glove left his chin, a ghost of it remained, feather-light.

"Gren, you're going to be my voice," Amaya said.

Oh.

 _Oh._

He nodded once, made to bow – but Amaya pulled him into one of their brief hugs that they shared whenever she returned from the battlefield and in moments like these, and Gren knew, as he hugged her in return, that this was to be his purpose – a role he would come to savor, in the years of his service to Katolis.

To Amaya.

* * *

As Amaya's interpreter, he spent every day from sunup until sundown by her side.

His existence became that of a binary star – the world as he knew it skewed towards her first in everything, and even if someone should address him and Gren's attention should stray elsewhere, always there in the corner of his vision was his General; and the merest shift of her shoulders or flicker of her fingers had him instantly at her side again, head inclined just so, watching intently. He chose places to stand and directions to face based on whether he could see her – whether she could call on him in a moment's notice. Even when they rode out he kept his horse even with hers, just so he could see her hands on the reins. In battle he trusted his guards with his life, and watched her blood-slick fingers to shout her orders.

She taught him the sword, although it was not her preferred weapon, nor was it his (he preferred no weapon at all, if he could choose), but he rode into the thick of battle with her, now, and should there come a moment when he had to take up arms himself, Gren knew he would never forgive himself if he did not go down fighting.

Now, at least, if a sword hilt was thrust into his hand, he could make some use of it.

Sparring with Amaya was joy in laughter – utter seriousness that always ended with him on his rear in the dirt for some reason or the other, but Amaya was always there with an extended hand to help him up, and those few hours were theirs alone daily – no lip-reading, no interpreting, only two friends together.

And then Gren met Amaya's family – and further joy entered his life before he fully understood it.

He journeyed with her to the capital when she had the rare chance to take leave – there, he met her nephews, met the King and Queen.

There was one moment, when Amaya was occupied with hugging the stuffing out of her nephews, where Queen Sarai took him aside and held his hand in both of hers. Her sword-calluses were so very similar to Amaya's.

"Thank you for what you do for my sister," the Queen murmured.

"It is my honour and privilege," Gren replied, and the Queen gave him a radiant smile, dropped his hand, and allowed him to step forward to his place at Amaya's shoulder once more.

Then Ezran toddled over, tugged on Gren's trousers (the tallest part of Gren he could reach), and babbled for a shoulder-ride, which Gren gladly obliged; Amaya reached for Callum and potato-sacked him around the room, growing boy and all.

Afterwards, Gren ate at the King's table with the rest of the family, and it was only as he absentmindedly fingerspelled a reply to Amaya's comment (his other hand was busy stuffing the best partridge he had ever tasted into his mouth, as politely as possible) that Gren realised he had been accepted into the family as an extension of Amaya's presence.

He was no longer simply a paper-pushing soldier. He was a friend, as close to family as any non-royal member of Katolis could be.

Amaya smiled at him across the table as Ezran stole his pudding from right under his nose, and Gren smiled back so widely his cheeks ached.

* * *

Time passed – a handful of years that seemed longer than they were, where Gren woke each dawn already seeking the movement of Amaya's hands and went to sleep every dusk with the graceful shapes of her fingers still imprinted behind his eyelids. There was an easy camaraderie between them now, in the angle of their heads and the inside jokes in every movement.

Gren was in that hazy gap between twenty-one and twenty-three – that span of years where he was technically already a grown man and yet maturing further so quickly that he did not realise it, when the battle at the border grew fiercer, and Amaya took the blow to her head that scarred her right cheekbone for life.

They would speak of it lightly, in the years after; casual ease in their signing and the quirking of their eyebrows.

The reality had been quite different.

In the slow, horror-filled moments after the blow fell and Amaya tumbled off her horse and the battalion around them seemed to rise like a rage-filled wave to drown the elf that had dealt the blow, Gren leapt off his horse and scrambled to find his footing in the blood-soaked mud, his heart in his throat as he stumbled his way over his General.

She was sprawled in the mud, a gash open on her right cheek, eyes closed and deathly pale, her shield half-buried beside her. Gren pushed back on the sickening falling feeling that burned within him and felt for a pulse at her neck instead. A sob of relief trapped itself in his throat as her blood flickered under his fingers, strong and steady.

He resisted the impulse to lift her out of the mud – there was no surety that she had escaped a neck injury. He simply drew the dagger in his boot and stood watch over her while their guards formed an impenetrable ring around them – until the battle was won, and the healers came.

Even when they bore her back to the outpost on a stretcher padded with the bloodstained blue of Standing Battalion cloaks – not one man or woman of the battalion would deny their General greater comfort for their own warmth – Gren was there, by her side; the healers worked around him in his bloodstained armour and ragged half-cape until Corvus slipped into the tent, his own leather hauberk stained crimson, and pulled Gren away with the admonition to wash up.

Gren was back within half an hour, and there he stayed.

Amaya remained in a dark tent for three days; the healers said her headache would yet worsen with light for a while, and that it was best that she remained still and recovered without even firelight.

And so Gren sat by the side of her cot for three days and nights, in complete darkness, resting with his head pillowed on his arms when his head drooped. There was no possibility he could see her signed words when she shifted and woke, so he spelled words into her hand, and she spelled back, and he held her hand through the utter nothingness of the darkened tent, knowing that she had no point of reference in this place except for his palm – not when she had not hearing, and now in this place, sight.

She recovered in due time – examined the new, scabbing scar on her right cheekbone in the mirror when the healers finally brought in candles, and looked to Gren.

Gren shrugged. "Piratey," he spelt, and reflected her fierce grin at that back at her. Something in his chest twisted anew – the spark of something unknown.

They took care of their daily responsibilities together as usual for the rest of that day; Gren's heart flipped constantly the entire time, leaving him distracted, slower in his motions. Amaya, naturally, noticed; she was as attuned to him as he was to her. He suspected it was partially for his sake that she retired early, even before evening meal.

He stumbled back to his own quarters for the first time in three days, and collapsed into his own cot fully clothed.

His heart was still thudding in his chest.

Gren pressed his aching face into his hard field-pillow and attempted to sleep, but sleep eluded him as the hours crept deeper past midnight.

His heart would not calm itself, nor could his mind.

Amaya's grin hovered there at the forefront of his mind, and nothing he did could erase it. His hand still ghosted with the phantom hold of fingers that were not his own.

What…what _was_ this?

It was like he was losing his mind.

Or perhaps…

Perhaps his regard for Amaya was no longer simply admiration.

Gren sat up abruptly at the thought, pressed a hand to his hammering heart. It was the darkest watches of the night; the camp around him was still and dark and silent, save for the telltale steps of the night patrol.

The first thing he did was force himself to accept that yes, he did indeed feel something for Amaya more than a loyal friend would. It was there in his yearning to be by her side more than anything, the flutter in his stomach in the instances where she chose to hug him, and in the warm glow in his chest when they shared evening meal together, as they had for years now. It was a different feeling to when they first befriended each other, back when he was a strapping young recruit with a fondness for calligraphy.

So, the question remained: what was he going to do about it?

Gren lit a candle, fumbling at it with exhausted hands. Sat properly on the edge of his cot, rested his chin in his hand to think.

The first and indeed most important consideration was if Amaya felt the same; Gren mused over the question for a little while before shelving it away. Amaya had not expressed anything out of the ordinary, and until he had reasonable cause to think that she would, it was not in his business to say anything regarding his newfound sentiment.

Second, and also important, was the problem presented by their differing roles and ages. There were fewer than ten years between them, and that would matter less as Gren grew older – but years as interpreter and diplomat had given him the ability to pause, and reflect, and wait. It was the natural result of spending each and every day as a quiet observer more often than not – speaking someone else's words rather than his own, and willingly doing so.

He knew, then, that he would have to wait.

It wasn't simply that she was older than him – Gren didn't put much stock into the idea that men had to be older than the women they courted – but simply that he was aware of his own faults due to his age. Faults that would change with time – he was Commander now, and Amaya's extended will over dozens of men at a time – but he had not grown into that role yet, and he knew that he would mature further.

Gren glanced at the wall of his tent – towards the direction of Amaya's larger command tent, directly beside his.

It was not as though what he felt was not real. But he was also painfully aware of his own youth, and the borderline hero-worship he had felt when he first met her.

He needed to be sure that this was not simply an extension of that.

So he would wait. Wait, and serve.

There was nothing more he wished than to remain by her side, and that he could do, day after day, as her most loyal and closest friend.

Any future change would come when it chose to, and only should Amaya wish it.

Gren killed the candle, leant back in his cot, and eventually found sleep in the scant few hours before dawn.

His General scrutinised the bags under his eyes the next morning with a subtle expression of concern, but Gren simply inclined his head formally, and settled in his place to wait.

And wait he did.

* * *

 **Next Chapter:** Queen Sarai was perfect, strong, unbreakable. But she was not immortal. Amaya grieves, and Gren does what he can.

I'll post this next chapter tomorrow, and set to writing more of The Silent Song, since chapter 6 of Waiting in the Quiet is now up on my tumblr!


	3. And Should the General Weep

**A/N: I should have uploaded this sooner but I've been swamped this week. Will get some more writing done for TSS and other things hopefully over the weekend!**

* * *

 _Chapter 3: And Should the General Weep_

* * *

"You look like you wouldn't mind a hot cup of wine," Amaya signed, the heavy winter folds of her cloak shifting with the movement of her horse as she nudged it onward with her knees.

Gren let go of his reins to reply. "You're not wrong," he replied, smiling ruefully across at her as he tried in vain to shake some feeling into his hands. Forming that last word had taken far more effort than it should.

Their horses, used to slack reins, picked up the pace at their gentle kicking. The air of the winter afternoon was crisp around them, and though there was blood on Amaya's left bracer and Gren's armour had its share of scrapes and dents (he hadn't quite avoided being in the thick of it this time), the promise of a quick return to camp and a hot drink greatly lessened their discomfort.

A glance at each other, and they nudged their horses into a gallop in unison; Amaya's smile widened as the wildlands flew past and the icy bite of the wind throwing their cloaks behind them. The thunder of their contingent's hooves followed close, and soon the two of them were at the forefront of a spearhead of blue and silver armour.

It was moments like these that Gren loved best; at Amaya's side, with the lands they protected around them and the wind before them, when their horses matched pace and it seemed for a few short moments that they were one and the same – as though Gren were her shadow.

It was scant months since he discovered the new regard he felt for her, and although it caught at him daily, often left him with an inexplicable ache in his chest – he was still largely content. It remained his charged duty to stay by his General's side, and he was willing and happy to do so. There were few things in the world so enjoyable as reporting every morning to Amaya's command tent to discuss the business of the day over breakfast.

Amaya liked sweet tarts, though Gren knew it was not to the legendary extent of her sister. She preferred to pair the pastries, rare as they were in an outpost such as hers, with tea so strong it could burn holes in spoons. Gren preferred lighter fare. Oftentimes the two of them would be so engrossed in written reports that neither realised what their hands were doing until each had prepared the other's preferred breakfast.

Then there would be laughter, and exchanged plates.

Gren smiled into the winter wind.

Over the last hill, and the permanent outpost of the Standing Battalion appeared in the distance. Home, for most of them. Gren grinned, cocked an ear for the salute of the war horn that would sound from its defenses each time the battalion returned.

But there was nothing.

Gren frowned.

Beside him, Amaya took a sharp breath as her hands tightened on her reins; Gren glimpsed the motion before it was completed and called for a halt before she finished raising an arm to order so.

He nudged his horse closer to hers, until their knees almost brushed. "General?" he said with his voice, knowing by the angle that she could see his face.

Amaya stared ahead, where pennants flowed from the flagpoles of the camp's defenses.

She did not reply. There was an expression on her face that Gren had never seen before: dread so raw and sickening that Gren felt his own stomach plummet. This was a side to his General he had never seen: more vulnerable than he could ever have imagined.

Amaya was still not responding to him. Gren extended a hand in front of her, finger-spelled, "Amaya."

She jarred, at that; looked at his hand first, then his face.

If Gren had chosen to look at the camp and not the General he so cared for, perhaps he would not have needed to ask; but in this moment he was focused on her, and her alone, and so he missed what should have been obvious to any common soldier; that which even the riders in the first row behind him had seen, and were beginning to whisper about.

Amaya's gloves creaked as she released the reins; the protest of leather held too tightly and stretched all at once.

Gren would remember the expression on her face and the shape of her next words forever; it would brand itself into his memory as a fulcrum in their shared history that could never be undone.

"The flags are flying at half-mast," Amaya said. Sentence finished, her hands balled into fists. Dropped to pick up her reins again.

Gren inhaled sharply. Whipped his head around, zeroed in on the tallest flagpole in the camp – bearing the sigil of the Standing Battalion below the flag of Katolis, rising above the circular form of the central command tent.

Both flags were flung out in the winter wind, anchored by rope and hook to the midpoint of the tall mast.

The only cause for the flag of Katolis to be set at half-mast would at the event of the death of a member of the royal family.

Which, of course, begged the question: _Which one?_

Dread rose in Gren's stomach, wrapped slimy hands around his throat.

Amaya made a motion, and even as Gren opened his mouth and forced out the words "Full gallop!" his General was already two horse-lengths ahead, her helm bent over the armoured neck of her steed as the desperate _thud-thud_ of hooves meeting dirt sounded in the air.

Gren kicked his horse to follow, the fever-pitch of hundreds of galloping hooves chasing him across the plain. Ahead, Amaya's cloak unraveled from under the shield at her back and was instantly tumbled away by the wind.

The owner of the cloak rode on without caring, but Gren adjusted his course, leant sideways in the saddle, and snatched the fabric out of the air; it settled heavy and still-warm across the front of his saddle as he straightened and plowed on.

The flags fluttered on ahead and above, heralds of terrible news.

Gren closed his eyes briefly. Exhaled through his nose.

 _A member of the royal family._

Prince Callum, the young boy with such a talent for art, who used to eagerly sit at his Aunt's and Gren's feet to hear tales of lands beyond the capital and draw them as he listened–

Prince Ezran, the sweet child with the heart too big for his little body, who when he was no more than a toddler liked to climb into Gren's lap and fall asleep there–

King Harrow, the man who stood as stubborn and unyielding as the rock of his fortress, who some murmured would die by his principles, but was also the gentle man who welcomed as his own the child of the lady he courted–

Queen Sarai, as gentle and fierce as her younger sister, who led the Home Guard with the same hands that wiped away her children's tears, who would fight her husband for sweet tarts, who, even as she had a spear in her hand and armour on her shoulders would always hold out a welcoming hand to the least of her servants; a true servant of Katolis herself.

Gren turned the names and faces and memories over and over in his mind, and could not, no matter how desperately he wished, figure which death might be worse.

After all, who could measure a portion of sorrow?

And sorrow was coming, faster than the fleetest arrow.

The outpost was closer than a bowshot away now; the gate opened, and general and horse sped through without pause. Gren followed a heartbeat later, the shadow of the gate washing over him and away again like a dousing of ice-breathed air.

His horse neighed in protest as he reined it in to a sliding halt; he would have to visit the stables with an apple and an apology later, but at the moment Gren was too occupied with flinging his reins in the face of the nearest stable boy and sprinting to the command tent, catching the tent flap as it fell back from Amaya's passage.

The first thing Gren saw as he straightened, cloak at the crook of his elbow, was the purple gem set in a walking stick of intricately-carved silver.

And above the walking stick, a sleek, brown haired head, mid-bow.

Gren watched Lord Viren rise from his bow, and noted with a detatched, battle-ready thought that King Harrow must be alive. Only Harrow would send Viren personally.

Which meant…

"General Amaya," Viren said, "I must apologise. I bring grave news." His eyes settled on Gren's General, who stood still and straight-backed, chest heaving with the telltale speed of her ride here.

Gren took two steps forward so the swing of his cape would enter Amaya's vision, and waited.

Her face was the hardest he had ever seen it; General and soldier only, with no room for weakness.

Viren opened his mouth, then paused. Seemed to consider his next words.

Amaya's hands moved sharply, knife-like.

"Just say it, Lord Viren."

Gren bit off the last translated syllable, dropped his shoulders, waited for the blow.

And it came. He had expected it, and yet it still knocked the breath from his chest, tilted the world towards a singularity of horror.

"It is my sorrowful duty to inform you that the Queen has passed." Viren finished the sentence, then looked away.

There were few that could meet General Amaya's eyes when they were afire.

Amaya was still standing in that same spot; a little more than an arm's length from Gren, two paces before Viren, and her hands were balled in fists at her side.

Gren could not see her face.

Then her chin raised, slightly, and she turned empty eyes to him; raised her hands, and said, "Gren."

He nodded in acknowledgement immediately.

Amaya's hands had none of the grace that they should have; they formed signs like immaterial smoke. "Could you repeat what Lord Viren said?"

Oh.

There was no possibility she could not have lip-read those words.

But this was his General's request.

Something inside Gren fell forever; fell even as he lifted his hands, his horrible, ever-steady hands (why were they steady now? Why now, when his General was not?) and signed, "The Queen is dead."

Something about forming the words with his hands made it final; the framing of the thing with hands and fingers, an admission of his own making far more material than simple spoken word.

"I am sorry," he added. His hands fell back to his sides. He felt them, dimly, begin to shiver; closing them into fists helped, but only barely. His fingernails dug into the creases of his palms.

Amaya closed her eyes.

Gren waited.

It occurred to him, in this frozen, silent moment of inhale, exhale, and watch, that much of his existence was for moments like these; but what made this here worse above everything was the fact that there was nothing they could do. It was the same tilting feeling in Gren's stomach on the battlefield when he held the hands of soldiers who were too far gone to save, except that even now there was nothing he could do to lessen his General's pain – only knew that this would change her, change both of them, and that the world as they knew it would be thereafter different.

Amaya's hands loosened out of their fists. She turned to Gren with eyes that were, for the first time in years, unreadable.

"Gren," she said, "inform my personal guard we will be riding for the capital at first light."

Gren nodded, moved to Lord Viren without being asked, and indicated that adequate quarters would be prepared for the night. Viren and his guards stepped outside at Gren's polite prompting; a significant glance on Gren's part sent any remaining soldiers out after them, too.

In the still air of the Command tent, two figures remained.

Amaya had braced herself against a table, hands splayed on its surface, head lowered. Her breathing was slow, even, controlled.

Gren knew he had little time; Viren would be waiting. But he still approached quietly, halted in her line of sight but a middling distance away, and paused.

When she did not look up, he took another few steps further and placed a hand on her shoulder. Her armour had looked resplendently battle-worn in the bright winter sunlight; but the dim candlelight of the tent dulled and blurred its edges until the illusion faded and it became what it was – bloody, scratched armour on the shoulders of a General who had just lost her sister.

Gren stepped closer and gathered her into a hug.

It was telling that Amaya did not meet his gaze, but hugged him back just as hard. Her arms were rods of steel around his chest; her forehead fitted into the curve of his pauldron and rested there, heavier than usual.

While they had shared brief hugs as close friends did often enough, Gren did not often initiate them; early on in their friendship it had been because she was a Commander and he a Second Lieutenant, and later on because he knew he had to keep up appearances for those observing who cared about their difference in rank.

Honestly, he could care less about that right about now.

Amaya's arms loosened after a minute or two; Gren followed her lead and stepped back a half-pace.

Her eyes were dry.

"I'll be back once I've informed the guards and Viren's settled," he said, forcing his hands to steady. "I'll be here."

The last part should have been redundant. But there was no other way he could express what he wished her to know – that he would be by her side no matter how she wished to deal with her grief – that though the world might collapse, he would be there to witness it with her.

A ghost of a thaw flickered across her features. "Thank you," she replied. The movement of her hand to her chin and towards him without the usual accompanying smile sent a chill through Gren's insides.

He pressed his right hand to his chest – it should have been his left hand, but he wished literally to offer his heart – and spun to go. He had to be quick about it. If he hesitated another moment, he was not sure if he could ever go.

Gren cast a glance over his shoulder as he closed the tent flap behind him, and glimpsed Amaya kneel, slowly, and reach for her pack.

The sun had begun to set, swollen with red tears, by the time Gren returned to the command tent.

Amaya's eyes, however, were as dry as the hinterland around them. She stared straight ahead, unyielding, as she informed the battalion of the Queen's passing; Gren had fought to keep his voice even as he spoke for her, knowing from the line of her spine that control, in this moment, was everything.

They rode at first light, that hour when the world was still and grey and colourless, leeching the colour out of the blue banners of the Standing Battalion, blurring each of their faces at the edges until the procession flew like wraiths over the short heather of the borderlands, silent and fleet until they slipped like lost souls over the horizon.

* * *

The funeral came five days later.

It was one of those winter evenings that were so clear that the air seemed frozen. The moonlight glinted silver on the procession – on King Harrow's crown, on the tears of his children. It bathed the cobblestones in liquid light, cast them forever in crystalline tears that mixed with the golden flame of the white-hooded torchbearers.

Queen Sarai had been mourned seven sunsets; she lay on a bier of Katolis wildflowers, in full armour; her hands were folded at her chest over spear and a covering of sable velvet, the edge of which stopped above her hands.

The people murmured among themselves as the procession neared and her pallbearers became apparent; many shed tears as the whisper spread:

 _Queen Sarai was loved indeed._

King Harrow bore the first corner of the bier; his coat was deepest obsidian and his long hair bound back under his crown. Beside him, sharing the weight, was Sarai's sister; General Amaya of the Standing Battalion, in somber armour and dark cape. Their black-haired heads were even. Strong. Unyielding, even as with the tenth toll of the bell, twin tracks of liquid slipped over the edges of the King's eyes and ran down his cheeks.

It was not traditional that the King should be pallbearer at any funeral.

But it was because he was willing to do so that the people so loved him.

At the rear of the bier, there was a flash of colour in the silver light; a red-haired head with observant blue eyes lowered in respect as calligrapher's hands curled around the carved shaft. Beside him was Queen Sarai's closest lady-in-waiting; she was slight of figure but determined, and Gren took on most of the weight without speaking of it.

When the funeral proceedings were yet in planning, Prince Callum had spoken up through shuddering gasps and insisted on being pallbearer alongside his step-father.

Harrow had looked at his sons, stricken; it had been Amaya who knelt and Gren who spoke for her as she told Callum, gently, that he was too small yet, and that if he chose to do so, Ezran would have to walk alone behind his mother's bier.

Callum had immediately withdrawn his request. He walked now five paces behind his mother's body, an arm around Ezran's shaking shoulder. Tears flowed down his face, but he did not sob.

This was how it was; war made new statues out of children.

Yet further behind strode Viren and his children. The torch-bearers framed them all in the flickering light of flame – warmth in the cold of the full moon. Each step was one toll of the bell; a dozen became a hundred, and a hundred, thousands.

Katolis loved its Queen; the people joined the procession as it passed, stepping onto the cobblestones behind both their King and Queen for the last time, torches and lamps in their hands, a river of yellow starlight to match that of the ones above. The ancient road to the Valley of Graves wound familiar and still through the hills; the bell of the castle behind faded even as the toll of the bell in the tower ahead grew stronger, calling the dead into rest, where statues of their ancestors stood watch upon the shores of the lake. Dimly, in the distance, the roar of a waterfall pierced the night.

The stone steps up to the platform were worn and hollowed by generations of pallbearers and the weight of fallen kings and queens. Queen Sarai's pallbearers set her down there, where the waves of the lake whispered paces away, and stood back.

Amaya's hands lingered on the side of the bier for a moment, when the King was distracted gathering his children into his arms; she raised her eyes and met Gren's in that instant, as he was the only one looking directly at her.

Her eyes were just as dry as they were a week ago, in the artificial night of her command tent.

But this was no time or place to speak; the fire-bowls were lit at Harrow's command as everyone but him descended the steps; he drew the velvet shroud over his wife's face, running a finger over her cheek for the last time, and Opeli, chief of the torch-bearers, laid a torch to the bier.

And then it was over.

The Queen's ashes were placed under a memorial in her name – a statue of her arrayed for battle atop her war-horse but with a smile forever caught on her features and a hand extended graciously – a Queen who was equal parts bravery and compassion.

The procession back to the castle was hollow without the Queen's bier – an awful yawning cavern at the centre of a group barely stitched together by formality and tradition.

The princes disappeared into the King's quarters once the public was out of view. None of them wished to be alone tonight.

Viren inclined his head. Ushered out his children.

And then it was just Amaya and Gren again, in the great entrance hall of kings, with dry faces and raw hands, and nothing at all to say.

That wasn't quite true. Gren could think of many, many things to say – but the point was that it wasn't his turn to speak. He did not need to.

Amaya did.

Or, more specifically, Amaya needed to weep.

It was a chilling thing to admit. Amaya's heart broke and mended and grieved as all did – Gren knew her well enough for that – but she had never, to his memory, wept aloud in his presence. Not even in the greatest of defeats, when she distilled the glimmer of moisture for her fallen soldiers in her eyes into battle wrath.

But perhaps that was it.

His presence, or anyone else's.

And then, just like that, Gren knew what to do. It was a gamble in parts, and should he have gambled and lost, it might very well end the friendship that he valued more that his life; but without action, there would be no end to this shell of his General who functioned without heart.

Amaya was still staring at nothing in particular, aware of his presence but not reacting to it.

She blinked when his hand slipped into hers.

Gren jerked his head towards the hall with a neutral expression – one he knew she would understand to mean he would explain later.

Amaya looked at him with faint confusion, but allowed him to lead the way to a side-corridor and down a flight of stairs; then another, and another. They descended into the dusty corridors of the citadel storehouses, sawdust muffling their steps. One could get lost there for hours; winding passages and thick walls to keep out the moisture.

Gren paused by a large oaken door so old that it seemed more stone than wood. He rapped once or twice on the walls experimentally, pulled on the iron ring, and heaved the door open.

The chamber within held a decently-sized store of sacks and crates. Gren swiped a torch from the corridor, lit the lamps within. He moved to the nearest sack, pried it open – found grain, flour.

Nothing so valuable as to be irreplaceable. Good.

Amaya's shadow moved across the floor beside him; he raised his head just in time to catch her word.

"Why?"

Gren considered this for a moment.

She watched him with the same steady gaze with which he watched her.

"The walls here are thick," Gren eventually began, hands moving slowly, gently. "The door is, too. The guards don't patrol here as often. You will be undisturbed."

Understanding began to dawn on her face. A crack in the flame-wrought mask of a General; the sister of the passed Queen began to show herself. Her eyes began to crease, her lips whitening as they pressed together, a dam against a flood that had been held back days more than it should.

Gren tore his gaze away. He could not bear it, and it was her own private moment; it was not his to see.

"I'll wait outside," he added. "Take as long as you need."

It was a good thing that he could turn and stride quickly to the door immediately as he finished that last sentence; his hands had begun to shake in earnest.

He closed the heavy slab of oak behind him, crossed to the opposite wall, put his back to it, and slid against it to the floor. His hands he pressed to his face.

There was nothing for a long, long moment.

Then, faintly, a howl. It was the sound of someone who had never formed words with the sounds taught for speech; it was wordless, voiceless, aimless, a thing of agony and utter despair, from the lips of one who did not even whisper.

Gren shuddered. Unbidden, moisture seeped between his eyelids, ran down his palms and wrists.

A scream, petering off into something that sounded horribly like a sob, muffled and distant behind a solid arm's length of stone and oak.

The stone wall was smooth and solid at Gren's back; he rested his impossibly heavy head against it, anchored himself there. There was no concept of time here, with only fat-fed torches and smooth grey walls, sawdust on the floor; no sun or moon or sky or stars.

A good place to think. A good place to grieve.

He sat there for a long, long while, with only the faint sounds of his General's grief for company.

Eventually, the oak door creaked as it was pushed open. Gren scraped a raw hand across the fragile skin of his cheeks, swallowed through a throat completely dry.

Amaya stood before him, one hand still on the iron ring of the door, the other pushing back her hair – it swung in a disheveled mass over the crown of her head and down to her left cheek. Her eyes were rimmed red. There was something incredibly fragile about the thinness of the raw skin of her lower eyelids over the determined set of her mouth.

Gren looked up at her, and something rose anew within him that he could not explain – it contained respect and awe and sympathy and care and love, and there was no word in the world that could describe all of it at once.

He pushed himself onto his feet. His knees screamed at him as he rose – curling up in even the lightest ceremonial armour was never a good idea – and took a half-step forward.

And stopped.

An arm's length between them – a distance maintained out of will and discretion, on Gren's part.

She searched his face. Gren was not sure what she was looking for – the dried tear tracks half-scrubbed away over his freckled skin, the earnestness in his eyes – but whatever it was, it seemed she found it.

The faintest of smiles slipped onto her face – an exhausted, shallow curve of her lips – and she tilted her head down the corridor.

Gren understood.

 _Let's go,_ Amaya was saying, even without raising her hands. _Let's go, Gren._

He nodded, stepped around her to close the oak door properly. He caught a glimpse of the carnage within, but handling that could wait. Tomorrow he would go to the comptroller of the King's household, say a quiet word.

Today, this hour, this moment – he followed Amaya as she made her way to the castle stables, gathered equipment along with her, saddled and tacked two horses side-by-side.

They rode out into the grey light of a winter dawn, and if any early-rising townspeople saw them, perhaps they seemed too otherworldly to disturb; the grief too near, the clipping of their horses' hooves on the cobblestones soft in a fresh layer of snow. Where the snow was thin, the white flowers of the kingdom's mourning were still strewn over the streets; the blossoms bruised and crushed under their horses' hooves, releasing their soft, sweet scent into the icy air.

Down that winding road again, to the outskirts of the capital; through the long shadows of the hills, to the Valley of Graves. The torches had burnt to thin columns of smoke; the thunder of the waterfall a steady counterpoint to the whispering of waves.

The foot of Queen Sarai's monument was heaped with flowers; daisies and forget-me-nots, cheap and non-expensive or self-picked – the flowers of the common people, alongside the purple-throated roses and black tulips of nobility.

There was no order to them – the people loved their Queen equally.

Amaya dismounted. So did Gren.

Amaya was clutching a few purple hyacinths and ruby azaelas in her bare hands, still fresh with morning dew, picked at a pathside clearing on the way to the valley.

Gren stayed a few paces back as Amaya approached her sister. He glimpsed a spark from a field-flint, and a moment later, Amaya set a lit candle before her.

The flowers settled beside the candle as Amaya knelt and lifted her hands to speak.

Gren looked away. It was a moment between sisters he had no part of. His breath misted into the wind.

There was a fresh rustle of leather and metal; Gren lifted his gaze to find Amaya still knelt there, holding out an open hand to him, a gentle expression on her features. She looked such a mirror of her stone-etched sister above, proud and strong and regal forever, holding out her hand on horseback as she rode out to war – that Gren found himself unable to breathe.

Amaya's eyes softened further.

Gren stepped forward, took her hand. Her calluses were familiar, warm in the cold winter air.

She pulled him to sit beside her. He reached for an unlit candle with his free hand, lit it with Amaya's flame, and set it beside hers.

His hand was still captured in hers. She did not look at him, not directly, but her breath ruffled the collar of his cloak as she leant into his shoulder, exhaustion in every line of her features. Her eyes were raised to her sister's face.

Gren let her do so. Wrapped an arm lightly around her shoulders.

Amaya's exhaustion melted into comfort the same time his did; they sat together before the Queen's grave, quietly, wordlessly, and rested in their mutual center as snow began to fall in earnest.

* * *

 **Next Chapter:** The War worsens, and a dragon falls.

The flowers Amaya gave her sister have meaning: purple hyacinths stand for sorrow and _forgive me_ ; azaelas are a Chinese symbol for womanhood, and mean _take care of yourself for me_.

Next chapter up tomorrow! All these are up on my tumblr, so I'll be quick in uploading everything up to chapter six.


	4. Felling Thunder

**A/N:** I've corrected one or two typos in the previous chapters. Thanks for the reminder! We're now getting into the war proper (just before the series starts) and our protagonists come to slightly different realisations.

* * *

 _Chapter 4: Felling Thunder_

* * *

The Breach, last Winter's Turn, the eve Thunder fell:

The dragon humans called Thunder had a voice that clove the earth, swallowed legions whole. His breath was fire, his claws lightning, and his eye that of a storm; cunning, calm, and devastatingly precise.

The forces of Katolis were being routed. There was no glory in this death. Fire consumed them from below and above; no escape in this hell of brimstone and dragon's breath.

Men and women cowered in Thunder's shadow as he reared to strike again – a blow that would cleave hundreds of resident souls from their hapless, armour-clad bodies. And yet, amongst the screams and the blood and the rushing emptiness of oncoming death, a single commander in blue-accented armour stood straight, and still, and watched.

Gren stared up into the jaws of death and could think of nothing but Thunder's majesty, even as a voice shouted words that pierced the air and the sky turned _purple_ –

But that was later.

His road to the black sand and molten rivers of the Breach there, at the mercy of Thunder's maw, began with the passing of the Queen of Katolis.

Queen Sarai's death brought about a watershed in the war between the human kingdoms and Xadia; hastened its crest like the sharp eastern wind that brought waves across the sea. And like all waves, eventually, it would fall.

After her death, Katolis strengthened its forces at the border like never before. It was fueled by a hatred to the likes of which none had seen since the original Exile of humans; the armies of Katolis raged against the forces of Xadia for the loss of their Queen.

The Standing Battalion had held an outpost a few leagues from the Breach itself as long as human history could remember; a permanent camp that nevertheless could be dismantled and moved at a moment's notice.

Until Lord Viren suggested otherwise: that a camp would not stand against the combined might of the elves, should they ever wish to abandon their defensive methods and instead invade.

At the time, Gren knew Amaya was of the opinion that no single fortress could stand under the combined weight of six elven races, but there was nevertheless logic in Viren's arguments.

The stronghold at the Breach was completed a year after Sarai's death; a grey-stoned, thick-walled fortress with stout merlons and deep-rooted towers, the flags of the uneven towers of Katolis and the sharp insignia of the Standing Battalion tall on its highest tower; a sneer at Xadia itself, only a single league past the roiling fire of the Breach.

General Amaya had been given a set of rooms within the keep; at her request, her interpreter and closest subordinate was given the rooms beside hers, with a single door between them that locked from her side.

Gren had blushed like a ripe strawberry (her words, not his) when he found out, but he could see the convenience in Amaya's request, and having tested the lock between their rooms and found it very secure from his General's side, decided to consider it not so different as when their quarters had been two tents, side by side. There was not so much different about two paces of dirt as compared to a single door, after all.

Or that was what he told himself.

It was only a scant month before the battle that struck at the heart of Xadia that Gren realised otherwise.

He found himself with an hour to spare; Amaya had decided to train alone that morning – to correct an inadequacy in her shield-arm after a recent injury, she had said. Gren had privately thought that there was nothing amiss about her shield-form, but had wisely decided not to contradict her. His General's displeasure at her own performance could easily transfer, and as awe-inspiring as Amaya was when she was angry, Gren knew from experience that it was a daunting thing to be her target.

Not that he would love her any less for it.

Over the years, keeping his heart bound had grown…not easier, exactly. He was simply more _practiced_ at it; stepping out of their hugs the moment he sensed Amaya loosening her hold, not initiating physical contact with her unless absolutely necessary, keeping the words he wanted to say locked deep, where they could not reach his lips or hands.

They had grown closer after the Queen's death – they had never spoken of the Queen's funeral and their shared grief after, but Amaya had expressed her gratitude in a hundred different ways; in the fond tilt of head when he sometimes looked up from a sheaf of parchment and found her looking at him, or her grin at his blush when she caught _him_ looking at _her_ – but Gren also knew that it was not yet time.

He had wondered, years ago when he realised the depth of his regard for her, whether those sentiments would ever fade; whether the stirrings in his heart were indeed only a continuation of his initial hero-worship for his Commander and then General. He had been younger, then; that span of years where those who knew him well called him a man, while those who saw him from afar might still have mistakenly called him a boy.

Now, Gren was twenty-four, and he wore the rank of Commander with the ease and efficiency of well-used gloves. And, like the companionable silences that often settled between him and Amaya when they rode out together, where they needed not even sign language when they were as close to each other in mind as they were – his regard for her had only deepened until it seeped into every breath he took and every moment of his day. And it was because he respected her so much that he knew, now, that he would not act. Not yet.

And yet, still, there were days where his heart ached like the ever-present glow of the Breach, over the edge of the fortress walls.

Gren glanced up at the battlements as he crossed the courtyard. The fiery light of the molten river was a ruddy sanguine over the ramparts above; like blood seeping into the sky. It swallowed all moisture from the air, kept the men and women of the battalion constantly on edge.

In a way, Gren was pleased that his rooms had windows that opened eastward; towards the heart of Katolis, that which he strove to defend.

He crossed to the stables. It had been a long six months without leave and his longsuffering mare deserved some attention.

Gren had his hand on the stable doors and was about to push them open when he heard the voices.

It was a good thing he had ears so trained to pick up the exact sounds of spoken words; otherwise, he may well have continued in and missed the importance of the conversation altogether.

What he heard rooted him to the spot.

"What are you saying?" A young, female voice – one of their newer recruits, Gren identified – said. "You think there's something going on between the General and the Commander, then?"

"Well, obviously I do," another voice answered. "Do you ever see them apart?"

The first speaker snorted. "He's her interpreter, idiot. Why would you see them apart?"

Her friend barked a laugh, one which snapped into the air. Pressed against the door, head lowered to listen, Gren could almost imagine the shape of his lips as he spoke.

"Ha. Have you been in the upper levels of the keep yet?"

"No," his companion sighed, with the accompanying _swish-swish_ that suggested long hair moving about her face. "Green recruits get stable-duty and yard-duty and drills. You know that."

A pause.

"Have _you?_ " she said in a stage-whisper.

"Oh, yes," the second speaker said – and Gren could hear the arrogance in his voice – "The keeper of the messenger-birds sent me to deliver a letter to the General. I went all the way up to the General and Commander's chambers."

There was a scandalous note to the end of the recruit's sentence that nearly sent Gren barreling in in that moment; but he took a slow breath, squeezed his eyes shut. Loosened his hand on the ring of the stable door.

A shocked gasp within. "You mean chambers, as in _plural, shared?_ "

The clinking of metal rings and leather; the sound of a shrug in full armour. "Well, I could see a half-open door in the General's chambers that led to the Commander's. Not that it seemed to matter, anyway. The Commander seemed right at home sitting beside her, papers and all."

"Maybe they're secretly married," the other said doubtfully.

Another snort. "They've got ten years between them. I think not. Anyhow, I thought General Amaya was as perfect as the stories told when I first came. Turns out she's as flawed as the rest of us, or _worse–"_

Whatever the recruit had been about to say was cut off by the sound of a door screaming in its hinges as it was smashed violently into the stone wall.

The recruits' faces drained of blood as they snapped towards the new figure, silhouetted against the red glow of the courtyard.

In another situation, Gren might have paused to consider his own frame of mind. But something had happened to his blood; it spun hot and bright and unfettered through his limbs. He glanced down at his fisted hands as he moved forward and was detachedly surprised that they were not crackling with lightning.

"Commander Gren," one of them squeaked. It was the one with the oh-so-delicate theory, by his voice. His green eyes were very, very wide.

Probably because Gren was the happy-go-lucky Commander of the Standing Battalion; the first to laugh, the last to frown. He treated each recruit with the respect and encouragement that Amaya had given him all those years ago when he was in their place.

Gren caught his reflection in the rippling surface of a watering trough. A stranger's face stared back at him; narrowed eyes, blue flame flickering in his cerulean irises.

"Recruit, is this your horse?" Gren said. _Said_ , not asked, because it was more of a statement than a question.

"W-what?"

Gren took a single step closer. The recruit's back bumped into the front of the horse stall behind him.

"Is. This. Your. Horse."

"Yes, sir," the recruit stammered. His friend was standing quite still at attention, staring into the middle distance as if this was all a bad dream.

"Saddle it."

"What?" Shivering green eyes.

Gren sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. "Saddle it and get your sorry arse on it and ride to the Home Guard. You're done here."

"What do you mean I'm–"

"From this moment," Gren said, armour clinking dangerously as he edged closer – into the recruit's space, like a fox closing in on its prey – "You are no longer a member of the Standing Battalion."

The recruit's face blanched further, until he looked no more than a wilting scrap of parchment. "I'm sorry."

Gren had already been turning to the other recruit, but his eyes snapped back with icy intensity. "Excuse me?"

"I'm sorry," the recruit repeated, with the air of one who had been taught from childhood that any wrong deed need only be repaid with a word of insincere apology. His next words evidenced it. "I am sorry. Can't you just let it go this once, sir?" His face was a picture of confidence.

Oh, he was asking for it.

Gren's fists clenched. There was no point in striking him. And it would be inappropriate – he was their Commander.

He drew himself up. Squared his shoulders.

"General Amaya," he said, "Is honour, bravery, and kindness itself. She has given her life to Katolis. It is my honour and privilege to be her servant and voice."

The recruit's eyes slid away. Gren snapped his fingers in front of his youthful face, jarred that green gaze back to his. The other recruit flinched.

"Do not demean her name with your filth," he growled. "She is worth a thousand of you. And a hundred of me."

Oh, she was; more than anyone could deserve. Gren closed his eyes momentarily against the familiar ache.

A creak of iron hinges behind him; the female recruit squeaked out loud, eyes bulging, and her friend startled so badly he clanged his helm against the stall he was crowded against.

Gren spun on a heel.

Amaya still had one hand on the door. The other was holding her shield. Her sharp eyes took in the tableau at once: her thin-lipped Commander, the white-faced recruits, and the tension so thick that it was almost visible.

She leant her shield against the wall to free her hands. "What happened here?"

Gren's heels clicked together as he turned to face her, inclining his head sharply. He was never usually this formal, but given the context it was best to make a show of it.

"Disciplinary action," he signed in return. "These recruits were severely out of line." A pause. "So out of line that I think this recruit should be dismissed from duty."

The male recruit's gaze was following their conversation with the frantic air of someone who could only understand half of what was being said – in a conversation where his future was in the balance, no less.

Amaya's eyes narrowed. "Their actions?"

"They insulted you," Gren replied. He hid a wince. Stating it like that made it sound like a petty schoolyard thing.

Amaya's gaze softened momentarily before she raised her chin pointedly. "Thank you, Gren, but I can take a few insults."

"Not–" Gren closed his eyes briefly, broke off his signing, and turned to the recruits. "Stay put," he said with his voice. "I'll be back in a moment." He gave the worse of the pair a sharp glare to help that sink in.

The recruit gulped, but he could not quite hide his relief.

Gren jerked his head towards the yard, and Amaya nodded, moved out into the morning sun with him.

The door closed. The yard was empty; most of the Battalion was in the rear training fields, running drills. Gren was grateful for it.

"I know you can take a few insults," he began, fingers flicking with agitation. "But not these. I mean, you shouldn't have to take them."

Amaya was watching him with a strange expression on her face. She made as if to sign something, and then changed the shape of her fingers at the last moment. "Thank you, Gren. But we cannot dismiss soldiers for speaking ill of their commanding officers. It is a problem, but dismissing them would set a dangerous precedent."

Gren looked away. He had to admit she had a point.

A hand settled on his shoulder, so brief that it was barely there. Gren raised his head, but her hand had already slipped away.

"I think two months of kitchen duty and early-morning flag raisings should do it," Amaya said. A wicked smile flickered across her features. "I'll tell them myself and scare some sense into them."

Gren mustered up a grin in return, and moved into the stable after her.

In his distraction, he missed how his General glanced over her shoulder at him with gentle concern.

* * *

That evening, they took their evening meal as they usually did, in Amaya's quarters. Gren fiddled with his fork for most of it; participated in conversation without his usual enthusiasm. His hand kept worrying at the neck of his fork when he was not using his fingers to speak.

He knew he hadn't quite pulled off the impression of normalcy when he found himself being scrutinised quite thoroughly.

Amaya's dark eyes searched his face with both a general's keen insight and a friend's concern. Her leather tunic was a lighter, more practical outfit than the full armour she wore when she left the fortress, and Gren always thought it suited her well, framing her features like a simple, well-wrought blade as opposed to a silver-handled one. Gren was in a simple blue-edged tunic himself; formal enough should there be unexpected guests, but without the stifling collar of armour.

Amaya lowered her cup of wine.

Gren could see the moment she decided to ask the question; he purposefully put down his fork and spoke first.

"I'm sorry, I don't have much of an appetite," he said. His hands were quite steady. He was proud of that. "I think I'm going to go to bed early."

"Of course," Amaya replied. Then: "Are you alright, Gren?"

Gren smiled.

It hurt.

"Of course," he echoed. Crossing to the door between their rooms took no time at all; he paused with a hand on the handle, and took a breath. Turned.

"One more thing," he said – with his mouth, because the hand that was on the door had already begun to tremble – "I will be moving quarters tomorrow afternoon."

Amaya stared.

Gren looked pointedly at a spot somewhere around her feet.

Amaya's fingers rose off the table–

"It's for no particular reason," Gren added, quickly. "I just…think it would be best. Remember to lock your door."

Then he slipped through the door and closed it on Amaya's bewilderment.

His room was quite still in the evening air; moonlight filtered in through his open window, silhouetting the simple furnishings and the unmarked floors, and the edge of his hair as he leant against the door and lowered his head.

It was a long minute before he heard Amaya slide the lock closed, on the other side.

Gren stood there, head bowed, and imagined for the briefest of moments his General on the other side of the handspan of wood, her hand on the lock and a troubled expression on her face.

There was a bone-deep tiredness that spread from his chest to his limbs, but he did not wish to sleep.

He scrubbed a shivering hand over his face and crossed to the window instead.

* * *

Amaya had settled into bed and was staring at the ceiling when the moonlight-casted shadows shifted across her ceiling.

Her hand moved instantly under her pillow to the dagger there; her eyes flicked to the window just in time to catch a bare foot and a cloak edge flailing past the glass, kicking up fragments of stone and plaster.

She relaxed.

She'd know that climbing style anywhere.

Amaya slipped out from under the covers, grabbed a cloak, and padded to the window on bare feet.

Crisp night air filtered into the chamber as she unlocked the window. The stone was firm under her fingers as she felt for a handhold and swung herself out into the air. The yawning drop below did not deter her; she made her steady way up the side of the keep, without care for the stone dust that coated her pyjamas and cloak.

Up the last few spans and over the ramparts, the firm square of a merlon on either side; and then a ginger-haired head on the opposite side of this corner tower, staring at the ruddy glow of the Breach in the distance and the mountains of Xadia beyond.

Gren was sat between two merlons, legs dangling over the drop, one hand clutching his own cloak closed around his thin sleep clothing.

Something ached with Amaya at the sight; an unidentifiable emotion.

She moved over to him, stepping with more force than necessary to warn him of her presence; she could not hear the sound her feet made when they crossed the stone, but he could.

Gren startled and twisted around to look at her. His blue eyes glimmered in the starlight.

"Amaya," he said. Not _General_. And with his hands, not his mouth. That was a good sign.

She made a little shooing motion with her hand, and he shifted obligingly to allow her space beside him. Amaya squeezed herself into the narrow gap between the rough stone and her commander's warm presence with nary a care.

Gren was watching her with a wary look in his eyes – that expression that always seemed too similar to hidden pain, but which flickered at times across his face in moments like these – when they were alone and Amaya chose to hug him, or smile at him, or laugh.

It was inexplicable. But her friend was in pain, and she wished to help him heal.

"Something is troubling you," she began. "It's to do with those two recruits." She never was one for subtlety. Too many had tried to force her to live by it.

Gren leaned his head against the square of stone on his right with uncharacteristic exhaustion. He nodded.

Amaya watched him. He had positioned himself very carefully, she realised now. Slouched elegantly against the opposite rampart in what could be interpreted as tiredness but what was really steel-lined caution.

As far away from her as possible.

It…hurt.

Unexpectedly.

Not quite the presence of hurt itself; Amaya felt pain and hurt like any other person, but she was usually quite adept at hiding it. This, however, was…different.

But perhaps that was it.

This caution, the remark after evening meal earlier; the sharpness of his shoulders in the stable as he spun and saw her enter.

The reminder to lock the door between their chambers.

 _Oh, Gren._

"They were talking about you and I," she said. Her fingers were growing cold, but this did not deter her.

Gren closed his eyes briefly. Nodded again. Shifted a little as he slipped his hands out of his cloak to speak.

"I don't know if they really believed what they were saying," he said. "I walked in on them talking about us." He dropped his head for a moment, breath misting out of his lips in what Amaya knew had to be a sigh. "It would have been fine if it was just me. But they were specifically speaking of you."

It was unsurprising. All of it. The fact that people would guess the worst of them – because it was in their nature to do so – and the fact that Gren had reacted so very strongly to it.

Her best friend and her second; her interpreter and her voice.

"You shouldn't need to care," Amaya said, flicking a hand out mid-sentence to raise Gren's chin so he would meet her eyes. "We're not like that."

And just like that, the pain was back in Gren's eyes.

She watched his chest rise and fall, a slow breath.

"You're right, we're not," he said, and his hands were quite steady. "But I think we should care a little."

"Why?"

"Because you're the General of the Standing Battalion," he said, and as he spoke, his gaze drifted beyond her, to the blood-red glow of the Breach. "You are the strongest force Katolis has against Xadia, and you must be seen as such. From every aspect."

Anger flew through Amaya's hands. "No," she replied. "I will not be shaken by foolish rumours."

Gren's hands flashed across the space between them, caught hers briefly and then released them.

Cool air washed over the places where his warm fingers pressed into her knuckles.

"I know," he said. "But I should move quarters. And not only because of the rumours. Because of me."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't think it's right that there should be a door directly between us," Gren continued cryptically. "I know you lock it. Others don't."

"That's ridiculous," Amaya said. "I don't see the point of locking it anyway."

"It isn't. And you should." Gren's head settled back against the merlon. "I'm not going far. Just one set of rooms down. I'll still be there at a moment's notice."

Amaya paused. Traced the shadows under Gren's eyes with a careful glance. "Is this what you want?" she eventually said.

His head shifted against the stone. She had a feeling that if he could, he would bury his face against it.

He nodded once.

"Alright," Amaya said. "If that's what you want."

Because that was all that mattered, in the end.

Even if there was a telltale spike of pain in her gut at the thought.

The night was cold, the stars and moon bright. The Breach was a roiling river of molten rock, steam rising into the velvety sky.

Amaya reached for Gren's hand. She was not sure why she did so, but his fingers wrapped around hers in silent apology.

She leaned her head on his shoulder to look up at the stars; she felt him hesitate, and then shift his arm around her.

And so it was atop the highest corner tower of the keep, with the Breach they guarded ahead and the endless sky above, that Amaya understood the curl of unease in her gut.

She would not give up her commander for anything in the world; anything short of Katolis itself, its king, or its princes.

He was her dearest, and at times only, friend.

* * *

The ground was afire, and the sky blazed with lightning.

Gren stumbled through a world dyed in three colours, and three colours only:

Red, for the flame-fed rock of the Breach; white-rimmed blue, for dragon-scale and gleaming fangs; grey, for ash and smoke and the bleached faces of the soldiers of Katolis, fallen at the feet of Thunder's power.

Gren was not supposed to be there.

He was supposed to be back at the fortress, as any non-combatant at the greatest battle of their lifetime was supposed to be; but as Thunder descended upon the Standing Battalion and gouged a wound in its formation comprised of dozens of mangled lives, Gren came to a decision.

He would face Amaya's fury later. In a battle such as this, she needed her interpreter.

A whistling sound far above, followed by the crackling of forming ice.

Gren looked up.

Thunder erupted out of the clouds, the king of dragons in all his glory, ice framing his bearded neck and gaping maw as he lanced towards the earth, fire streaming back from his open jaws.

The roar slammed into Gren's eardrums a moment later. He fell to his hands and knees on the scorching ground and screamed, hands at his ears.

Thunder's claws slammed into the ground a mere bowshot ahead, scattering soldiers like rats before him.

Gren pushed himself to his feet. Glimpsed a familiar gold and blue-edged shield beyond Thunder's wings, racing towards them.

Amaya.

A soldier screamed just ahead as the ground crumbled at the impact of Thunder's front paw; it swallowed the soldier whole, helmet, shield, and all.

Thunder's intelligent eyes found his.

Gren stood. Watched as death came for him in all its majesty, silver-blue scales and thunderous fire.

He glimpsed, beyond the deadly grace of the king of dragons, Amaya's grime-streaked face.

Their eyes met.

It should not have been possible, but they did.

Amaya's mouth opened as she stared at him. Gren could not hear her over the roar of the dragon and the crackle of lightning, but he thought that she must be screaming.

Thunder reared back, slammed his claws into the ground. The sky flashed purple as an otherworldly voice somewhere behind hissed words so dark and knotted they seemed unspeakable, and the world _twisted_ –

Something scorchingly painful flashed through Gren's shoulder and down to his feet, and he knew no more.

* * *

Gren woke to the sound of hitching sobs.

He blinked up at the sky – grey, with the first light of dawn. Even that little luminance sent a spear of agony through his skull, and he hissed through clenched teeth and squeezed his eyes shut.

A hand touched his cheekbone – callouses familiar to him from years watching them in sign.

Gren opened his eyes properly.

Amaya was knelt by his side, one hand clamped tight around the pulse-point at his wrist, the other running a thumb over his cheekbone. She was no longer sobbing, but twin crystalline rivers ran down her cheeks.

Gren noted belatedly that the top half of her armour was gone; she was dressed in the teal, high-collared shirt that went under her usual armour.

It was only as he tried to take a deeper breath that the pain started.

He bit back a scream; every inch of his body from his crown to his toes ached, especially the shoulder and foot that had been hit by the blow earlier.

The fingers at his cheek and wrist disappeared.

Amaya's hands were moving.

"You weren't breathing," she said. "I couldn't find a pulse."

Gren blinked down at himself. His armour had been removed from waist-up, flung haphazardly by his feet in a – _smoking?_ – pile. There was a sharp creased depression in the fabric of his shirt above the centre of his chest. When he breathed, his ribs ached.

This wasn't making sense.

There was a small mountain not too far away; a thing of crimson-coated silver-blue scales–

Thunder. The King of dragons was dead.

And then Amaya bent over him to curl her arms around his neck, and Gren understood even as he raised a stiff arm to rest across her back.

He imagined Amaya, shoving soldiers out of her way as she tore across the battlefield for her fallen commander; throwing down her shield and ripping the smoking breastplate and overtunic off him, feeling for a pulse and finding none; pressing both hands into his sternum, regular, strong, thirty compressions for every two breaths.

Now Gren thought about it, his lips hurt.

She must have pushed every breath into his lungs with desperation and fear; tearing off her own armour when it grew hot and stifling, forcing blood around his cooling body with nothing but her hands and her lungs and her determination.

Gren knew the chances; his hadn't been good.

This was nothing short of a miracle.

At this, his breath hitched. He fought to sit up, curled Amaya tighter into an embrace. She buried her face in his shoulder. There was a quiet vulnerability about her that he had never seen. Her non-armoured form was warm and alive, and her heartbeat strong against his own, binary stars that crashed into each other mid-orbit and refused to let go.

Gren pressed his face into her hair. Closed his eyes.

"I love you," he whispered.

She shifted back in his arms; she must have felt the vibrations but not known the words.

He read the question in her red-rimmed eyes.

Faced with his General like this, having cheated death, Gren almost said it; almost allowed her to lip-read the words he so wished to say.

But years of restraint did not stop here, she had said there was nothing between them, not even a month ago.

"I thank you," Gren said instead, and allowed her to pull him back into their embrace.

It hurt less than it did before, that lie, when they were drinking in each other's survival like this.

Around them, soldiers were stirring; groups were forming to tend to the wounded, individual soldiers pausing to stare at the body of the dragon. But soon that would lose its novelty, and they might turn to see their General and Commander–

It was Corvus, beard bloody and jerkin stained, who stepped quietly forward and ordered a quiet circle of Standing Battalion veterans around his commanding officers. The veterans responded immediately, averting their eyes politely, and formed a solid phalanx around the two kneeling figures.

Amaya and Gren stayed oblivious, eyes shut, arms wrapped tightly around each other.

But before the circle closed, hiding General and Commander from sight, two soldiers of the Standing Battalion – no longer simple recruits, not after this night – jerked to a halt, and stared.

"I was wrong," one said, running a hand through his blood-soaked hair. "I mean, I wasn't completely wrong, but I was wrong. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes," his compatriot said. The lower half of her braid had completely singed away. "I think we both were." She paused. "Not a word about this to anyone."

"Not a word," the other agreed.

At the centre of the circle, Gren breathed; breathed in Amaya's familiar smell of metal and wild heather, and felt each soft exhale in return against his shoulder.

They remained like that for a long while; until the sun rose properly into a new day, on the cusp of a new war.

* * *

 **Next Chapter:** Gren pens a letter, and Amaya receives one from the king; one that will permanently change Katolis.


	5. Letters and Questions

**A/N: Hey, everyone. Sorry for disappearing for a few weeks; I was a little overwrought from a very busy schedule and just had to take a break from any fandom for a little while while I recharged. Things are looking up a bit and I realised I never cross-posted chapters five and six of this fic from tumblr, so I'll be doing so now. This chapter brings us firmly into mutual pining area.**

* * *

 _Chapter 5: Letters and Questions_

* * *

Amaya found him on the battlements, staring towards the flame-fed river of the Breach, as he was wont to do of late.

She paused to consider the image he presented as she drew closer; his hair had grown slightly longer of late, and it brushed his right ear in the morning wind, above his armoured collar. The half-cape that marked him as a commander fluttered like a pennant from his right shoulder; his hands, quick in language and slow to pick up a weapon, were occupied with something on the edge of the battlement before him.

He had changed, her Commander Gren.

In a way, he retained much of easy laughter and earnestness of the eighteen-year-old that had rode up to her command tent six years ago; but there was a languid grace to his movements now that was not present then. A willingness to wait and watch, a sharpness to his stance and the speech of his hands that spoke of a quick mind and a well-controlled heart.

A well-controlled heart.

Amaya wondered, sometimes.

She had wondered after the grief of her sister's passing mellowed into a sting that only sometimes rose to the surface; wondered how Gren had carried her through the worst of her sorrow. She had wondered when she saw the pain that entered Gren's gaze in the strangest of moments – after she chose to hug him, or after a quiet moment of laughter or conversation that reminded Amaya of her fortune that Gren was her dearest friend. She had wondered when Gren insisted on moving out of the quarters beside hers, and she had wondered above all when she glimpsed the raw emotion in his eyes on the burning wastes of the Breach, with the king of dragons slain beside them.

"I thank you," he had signed then, when she had felt the vibrations of his speech with his head buried in her hair and hers buried in his shoulder. But no matter how many times she turned the words over and over in her mind, it had not made sense. Not in the usual structure of sign language, nor in spoken speech.

Gren could have said something else entirely.

She wondered if Gren could possibly have…

The wind changed; Amaya's step shifted to compensate as it caught her cloak, and ahead, Gren straightened and twisted in place to look at her.

And just like that, the contemplative philosopher was gone; there remained only her closest friend, who smiled at her as she approached.

Before, that smile had been like a hearthfire; home, friendship, warmth. After her sister's passing, it was shelter and shared grief, as well.

Now, it reminded Amaya of dragon-lightning and a voice so thunderous she could _feel_ the sound she could not hear in her breastbone. It reminded her of desperation and tears and the utter, fire-born relief when his heart flickered back to life beneath her fingers – a flame-fed forge where once there once was a simple hearth.

It was a smile she could not bear to lose, and a part of her was as unsure of what to do with this thought as that of Gren's hidden words.

Gren's eyes softened as they watched her approach.

"Something on your mind?" She said as she reached him, shaking her cloak out of the way as the wind pushed it over her signing.

Gren shrugged and grinned, tucking something under his left bracer. Amaya caught a glimpse parchment edge.

"Just woolgathering," he replied. That phrase was a favourite inside joke of theirs; instead of spelling such a lengthy word, they combined the sign for _sheep_ and _gather_ – a reminder of the time that Gren fell asleep in a barn and woke to find himself being used as a hot water bottle by an entire herd of sheep.

Gren had told her later that her laughter upon finding him was loud enough to wake the entirety of their travelling party.

At the memory, a smile tugged unbidden at Amaya's lips. "You missed breakfast," she said. "Corvus was wondering where you were."

"I had a letter to complete," he replied, cryptically.

Amaya paused. She could ask him who he was writing to – he had no family, she knew – but over the past few years, she had learned that there were times that Gren did not fully explain his thoughts; when he insisted on moving out of the rooms she picked for him despite obviously wishing anything but, for example.

So she did not ask.

Like she had never asked what he truly said on the battlefield of last Winter's turn.

But perhaps she should.

She met his gaze.

Gren was watching her with that somewhat-closed expression he always had when he was waiting for her next move; a side-effect of years as her second and commander. But as he watched her and she watched him, Amaya glimpsed a glimmer of hope so well hidden in his gaze that she almost missed it.

Gren's head leaned towards her for the merest moment before drawing back – not a nod, or an inclination of the head, but as if he sought for an instant to take a half step forward so the distance between them would shorten to no more than two hand-spans.

Her wondering became less uncertain, at that.

Amaya raised her hands to ask the question–

–and a messenger hawk landed on the rampart beside them.

Gren closed his eyes briefly against some inexpressible emotion before opening them again.

The hawk stared keenly at Amaya as it opened its beak, and Gren winced; Amaya knew it must have released an earsplitting screech.

Fate and chance moved strangely at times; in another universe, another world with a difference sequence of events, Amaya might have let the messenger hawk be and ask the question she so wished to understand; but the hawk's back was bound with a message tube engraved with the emblem of the uneven towers of Katolis – the King's emblem – and the General in her moved before she could think of it.

Gren shifted beside her. Amaya glanced at him as she undid the bindings of the message tube, but he was already looking away – ensuring that there were no bystanders to see what might be a letter of extreme importance. There was not a trace of the restrained hope that she had briefly seen in his posture.

The uneven towers split in two as the Amaya broke the wax seal of the tube itself; the hawk unfolded its wings and took to the air for the fortress aviary.

She stepped closer to Gren so they might read the letter together, and his elbow brushed hers briefly; familiar, warm.

The King's writing was rushed, the letters narrowed and sharp and fading towards the ends where he had written on without bothering to re-ink his pen.

 _General, the castle is under threat._

Gren stiffened beside her. That first word alone was enough to put them both on edge; a missive not from a brother-in-law to his sister-in-law, but a king to a general.

 _General, the castle is under threat. Assassins have infiltrated the kingdom. Moonshadow elves._

Amaya's heart simultaneously began to beat its war rhythm the same time it dropped into the calm of command; there was no time to lose. She was already considering the number of companies she could afford to take with her without leaving the Breach undefended before the next sentence derailed that thought completely.

 _Do not bring your force to the castle. Your orders are to proceed immediately to the Banther Lodge. Callum and Ezran will be there. Above all, see that my sons are safe._

Callum. Ezran.

Harrow must be in peril indeed; he would only send away his sons, those most precious to him, in a time of danger so complete that death was all but assured. The letter did not say it, but its rushed letters did. And by the tone, it seemed as though Harrow knew Amaya would understand just as well as he did.

The letter could be summarized in one awful sentence: _Save my sons instead of me._

It was what Sarai would have done.

The familiar ache of loss burned in Amaya's chest.

But this was no time for sentiment.

Gren was already signing as Amaya lowered the letter; already sprinting, just as she was, towards the keep.

"How many?"

"Six infantry, four cavalry, and Corvus," she replied immediately, fingers sharp.

Gren nodded, snagged the cord for the general-assembly bell as they slammed through a door and into the corridors of the keep. Amaya felt its ring as a deep sonorous shudder through the stone floors and up her ankles, calling all who were not on watch to the fortress courtyard.

"I'll gather the group," Gren said, nearly cutting off the last sign as he stumbled on a loose stone and flung out a hand to steady himself.

"Stables, ten minutes," Amaya said, and they broke away at a stairs like wolves on hunt; Amaya racing down to the yard to speak to the gathering soldiers – a replacement interpreter would have to do in a pinch – and Gren to waylay Corvus on his way out of his quarters.

Weapons were gathered, packs snatched up at the ready, and soon all fourteen of the party were speeding towards Banther Lodge, over a day's ride away. They would find fresh horses at guard posts wherever they could, and even though Amaya knew eventually their infantry might have to resort to travelling on foot, their initial speed would be essential in getting them there faster.

It was only when they stopped for a scant two hours' rest as the moon crested high in the sky – a full moon and Moonshadow elves, she thought, with no little dread – that Amaya realised she had never asked her question.

Gren was already asleep; curled on his side facing her with his feet pointing in the opposite direction to hers, as though they were spokes on a wheel that overlapped slightly in the centre; Amaya's face was level with his chest and his with her stomach, and an arm's length between them. This was the way they had set up their field bedrolls ever since Gren became her interpreter, all those years ago; it allowed each to wake the other with an outstretched hand at a moment's notice, and immediately communicate if need be.

The firelight flickered over Gren's freckles. In sleep he was peaceful. Happy, even; his eyes having no need to constantly seek her hands, to watch for threats at her back. He shifted slightly in his sleep, and his fringe slipped down to tickle his face. His nose scrunched, tugging at his freckles like the wake of a ship would the reflection of the night stars above.

Amaya's fingers were almost at the lock of ginger hair over Gren's nose before she caught herself.

She stared at her own hand for a minute – sword and shield-calluses familiar to her after decades of training – and snatched it back under her field-blanket before anyone could spot it.

She massaged the fingers of her strange, disobedient hand with the other. There was something curling in her chest that felt inexplicably like fear.

No. Not quite fear. Nervousness? Hope? Intrigue?

Amaya could not for the life of her figure out what it was. It seemed a mix of all three and more.

Gren's lips moved a little in his sleep – the shapes too small to lip-read – before he settled again.

Amaya glanced at the night sky, marked the passage of the moon. They would have to set off again in an hour or so.

She curled tighter into her covering and closed her eyes, blocking out Gren's sleeping features.

It took an iron will not to open them again. Gren's face hovered behind her eyelids all the same, and he walked with her in her dreams, where she called out for her nephews and found no answer.

* * *

Exhaustion was pulling at Gren's limbs by the time the party neared Banther Lodge. The horse he rode was not his; he had found a fresh one not three hours back at a guard-post by the forest road.

As they turned off the well-traveled road to the hard-packed dirt of the path leading up to the royal family's winter lodge, Gren glanced at Amaya's hands. They were steady on her horse's reins, and her face, framed by her helm, was still and utterly focused. The shield on her back did not seem to be a weapon so much as tightly furled wings, itching to take flight.

She knew as well has he did that should the Moonshadow elves have succeeded, their next target would be her nephews. And Moonshadow elves could run faster than the fleetest horse on a full moon night.

And yet, through the dread and the uncertainty…

The part of him that was simply commander, interpreter, steward, and friend kept casting his thoughts back to the battlement of the fortress at the Breach yesterday morning.

For a moment he had been almost sure she was going to ask about…

Gren quashed the thought as ruthlessly as an early-plucked flower.

There was no point in speculating until something had changed.

Amaya picked up the pace, until Gren found himself a little behind and to the right of her. He did not resent it; her nephews might have been orphaned a few hours ago. If so, she was their only family left. It was likely she had considered the same things Gren did.

They crested the last hill, and Banther lodge came into view; a sturdy house of stone bricks and wood beams, surrounded by leagues of royal-owned forest. A smaller shed of sledding and varied winter equipment stood a little ways away.

The building was utterly still. There was no Ezran laughing as he chased Bait across echoing wood floors, nor Callum's voice following.

Dread curled in Gren's gut.

Amaya's hands were tight on her reins, but she nodded once, and Gren called for the war horn; the undulating blast of it lanced past him.

Gren breathed, and waited. Ahead, Amaya was doing the same.

For a moment, nothing.

And then two figures darted out of the treeline to the left of the main house, distinctive satchel-notebook and fluffy hair flying, followed by a speck of bright yellow and blue – and Gren exhaled, slowly.

Amaya leant forward a little, and Gren knew she wished to break into a full gallop there and then. But he also knew that the General in her stopped the action before it could be completed.

When they were close enough, Amaya halted the group with a raised fist, and dismounted in a clatter of armour.

Gren slipped off his horse with more care, eyes steady on his general as he stood at attention with his hands behind his back.

Amaya stood there for a moment, hands on her hips, spine a steel rod, head high – the picture of a general in command.

Or a general examining her nephews for injuries before anything else, as Gren understood.

Perfect silence. The boys stared wide-eyed up at the tall figure in full armour and helm, silhouetted against the sunlight; but then Amaya reached up and pulled off her helmet, and suddenly, the general was gone and the aunt was in her place.

Gren knew from the angle of her shoulders that she was smiling. And because _she_ was smiling, so did he–

Just in time for his jaw to drop in surprise as Amaya chucked her helmet up into the air. Aiming for him with unerring accuracy, too – his eyes widened as he judged angle, speed, and height–

He leaned back slightly and brought his hands up. The helmet smacked into his palms exactly where his face had been the moment before.

His _face._

Oh, he was _so_ going to bring that up with Amaya later.

But a grin was pulling at his lips unbidden now; it almost hurt his cheeks as he settled her helmet on his hip.

The Princes were alive, and Amaya was the happiest he had seen her be for a good long while.

Which meant that Gren was feeling pretty good, too.

Amaya had completed her happy almost-skip to her nephews by the time he straightened, and he stepped up next to her as she gave her nephews one of her famous squeezes – the kind that left one feeling as though one's lungs had been thoroughly wrung out.

Gren should know. He had been on the receiving end of those often enough.

"I'm so glad you're safe," he translated, his heart flipping anew at the pure joy on Amaya's features as he dipped his chin to read her signs. He spoke for himself as well; here, at least, was something that had gone right in the war.

The boys, however, seemed rather…less glad to see their aunt than expected.

Callum, bless him – he could never lie worth a dead horse – babbled something strange about being alone. Now that _was_ peculiar – King Harrow would never have sent his sons off without an escort – but nothing set the alarm bells ringing in Gren's head as much as when Amaya suddenly tensed in the corner of his vision.

"What's wrong?" he said immediately with his free hand, eyes narrowing.

Her only response was to look up at the lodge itself.

Gren followed her sight-line to the second floor, where a window stood halfway open, reinforced glass glinting in the sunlight.

It could be that a servant had neglected to close it properly last winter.

Or it could be something else entirely.

Amaya evidently thought so; she stalked up to the wide double doors that made up the entrance, and likely would have driven them in with one of her legendary battering-ram kicks should Callum not have jumped in front of her.

"Oh, uh, that door's locked–"

Gren could see it coming before it did; he hid a grin as Amaya bodily picked up her nephew and set him aside before smashing in the doors with one well-placed kick.

The awe of the sight had abated slightly after years of watching her to so to anything from elven shields to _stone_ walls – but the sight and sound never got old. It was something that reminded Gren every time how amazing his General was; how strong, how graceful, how completely blunt she was when she needed to be.

Amaya's eyebrows rose challengingly as she rose from her crouch.

"I don't believe in locks."

Gren had reined in his inner monologue before it showed itself, but he could not keep the pride from his voice.

The lodge was quite still and silent in the warm air. A fine layer of dust covered the patterned rugs. They had not been disturbed since last winter.

Still, Amaya's shoulders were set in wariness.

"Someone's here," she said, and Gren was already drawing closer to her to wedge the boys between them even has he spoke for her, eyes flicking to the rafters–

Then Callum interjected, and Ezran said he was hungry.

The tension in Amaya's frame morphed into a different type of tension entirely – that of a caring soul with one of her charges hungry.

Gren took one more glance around the hall, and followed.

The back of his neck tingled, nevertheless. Amaya gave him a significant glance as she knelt to look in a cabinet for food, and Gren lowered his chin in the merest of nods.

 _Danger still present. Stay alert._

For a few short hours, everything seemed peaceful. The boys conversed quietly in a corner of the great hall while Gren supervised the airing of their winter rooms. They might have dispatched a rider to the capital for news if they could spare a soldier, but they could ill afford to.

But for the moment, all was calm.

Gren had just noted that Amaya had been out of sight for a quarter hour when he heard the unmistakable sound of her shield shattering stone, followed by the sharp clash of metal.

He spun on a heel, half-cape whirling as he sought the princes. The alcove where they had been whispering to each other barely a half-minute ago was glaringly empty, their cups of tea still wafting steam.

Oh, by Katolis, _no._

The search was quick and brutally efficient. Gren snapped orders at his soldiers and leapt for the nearest room door; dusty air within was all that greeted him. The same for the next chamber, and the next, and the next–

Callum and Ezran were nowhere to be found.

The clamor continued on the level above. There was an earsplitting crash and groan of tortured wood as something incredibly heavy tumbled onto the floorboards above: the hallmark of a fallen beam of ancient wood.

Gren checked and double-checked that Callum and Ezran were truly gone, a few breathless minutes of sprinting and shouting commands, and leapt up the stairs to the game room right as the racket within abated.

Which, in a fight between a possible Moonshadow elf assassin and a general of Katolis, could only mean one of two things.

Fear rose and clamped iron hands around Gren's insides.

Up the last few steps, boots slipping on polished stone, breath ragged in his ears; hand on the heavy oak door, the weight of his shoulder behind the push–

The door slammed into the bookcase beside it, revealing a young Moonshadow elf pinned to the wall with Amaya's shield, and Amaya herself with short sword in hand and murderous anger in her eyes.

In the split second where Gren registered that _yes_ , she was victorious and had captured the assassin alive, and that _no_ , she was unharmed, he also registered that he could not simply call her _Amaya._ Not here, in front of an enemy of Katolis.

"General Amaya!" he called, lips delineating every syllable in sharp relief, "The princes have disappeared!"

Amaya's lips dropped into a growl even as her eyes filled with a mixture of shock and determination.

She turned back to the elf the same time Gren did, and Gren knew that it was only his news that saved the elf from a slit throat.

She would need it to speak.

And from Amaya's simmering gaze, she intended to make her do so.

* * *

The elf said nothing.

It was impressive, to some extent. In Gren's experience, there were not many who could meet Amaya's gaze full on when she was of single-minded determination for answers. Even Viren had adverted his eyes back when he rode to the Breach to inform them of Sarai's death.

Amaya spun in a whirlwind of ash-fed fire. Snapped orders to the guards with movements sharp and unforgiving.

Gren followed her as she stalked out of the cellar, her eyes spitting sparks. Her shield seemed to curve like talons over her shoulders.

She halted in the corridor. Her lips were a thin white line; fury boiled in her clenched hands.

Gren waited.

Her hands uncurled with visible effort. "Where did you see the boys last?"

"Here," Gren pointed. "This alcove."

The two cups of tea had grown cold, but there was nothing out of place; there were two neat indentations in the wide cushions where Callum and Ezran had sat beside each other.

"There are no signs of struggle," Amaya commented, brows caught in a severe frown.

Gren's hands paused. "Yes. I thought it strange."

Now he thought about it, actually, there were a great many things that were suspicious about this.

Callum's peculiar way of speaking. The lack of struggle where the boys disappeared; the single, young Moonshadow elf who insisted she came alone, who had been found in an empty game room of all places; nowhere near where the boys were.

Unless…

Perhaps the young elf was an agent of distraction and sacrifice.

Disgust coiled in Gren's stomach.

Amaya's thought process evidently followed much the same path. "A suicide mission to serve as distraction while the main force captured the boys?" she proposed. "The elves must be as cruel to their children as they are to their enemies."

Their children.

But they could not afford to think of the elf as a child.

A distant part of Gren hoped the assassin would speak when they returned to her; they needed answers, and should she still refuse to oblige…

He did not want to think of what they might have to do.

The disgust in his stomach coiled into sick dread.

A cry rose in the distance.

Gren's head snapped towards the sound; Amaya caught his movement and broke into a run the same time he did.

Out to the great entrance hall, where the evening air filtered in through the gaping doors like icy hands; down the stone steps and across the yard, where three distinctive figures stood half-crouched, surrounded on three sides by soldiers of the Standing Battalion.

The moonlight bathed everything in sharp relief; the delicate balance of elf, princes, and guards inlaid in silver.

It could shatter at the slightest change.

Amaya's hands were moving even before she reached the edge of the circle; Gren sucked in a breath through the thudding of his heart and tinged his voice with her commanding presence.

"Stop right there, elf. Callum, Ezran, come here."

 _Don't be fools,_ Gren thought at them. _This is your only chance. Get away from her when she has two arrows pointed at her heart._

Ezran's eyes were very, very wide; even Bait stayed still and quiet in his arms. Callum's breathing had the shallow and quick quality of someone thinking extraordinarily hard with little time.

 _Don't think. Move,_ Amaya had once told Gren, when she had thrown him into the dirt again during one of their earliest training sessions. _Run if you must._

There was no trace of weakness in Amaya's shoulders; no tremor in her fists, nothing but readiness in her stance.

But Gren knew her too well; she was commanding here because she must be so.

To be otherwise would mean the death of her sister's sons.

Ezran shifted and whispered something to his older brother. The gathered soldiers all straightened in hope for a moment, and Amaya's hands moved immediately.

"Boys, get away from her." Gren infused that sentence with the strong additional implication of _listen to your aunt she is trying to save you_ , and for a moment he thought he might have succeeded when Callum shouted to wait and darted forward – but the older prince slid to a halt after two steps, words spilling out of his hands.

"If you don't let us go, she says she'll kill us and drink our blood. She's a _monster._ "

The shift in Amaya's body language was instantaneous; her lips opened slightly, and her shoulders dropped. Gren met her eyes in silent conversation, and a dozen considerations leapt into their shared gaze and were equally dismissed in the same moment.

It did not matter. They had seen enough battles, the two of them; no plan of action would work unless the boys took matters into their own hands and ran.

The elf demanded an explanation; Gren's voice was tight as he repeated Amaya and Callum's words. Amaya's eyes were that of a wolf's, now; a hunter ready to leap at the slightest weakness her prey presented.

"So you have to let us go!" Callum called.

Gren could see the moment Amaya came to the decision – the realisation that if her nephews could not act, then _she_ would have to.

No matter the risk.

It was what made her such an excellent general; the willingness to make a calculated bet.

Even if it included the lives of her nephews. Even if it stabbed her in the heart to do so.

Gren knew the feeling well.

"It's okay, Callum. I've slain monsters before," Amaya signed, fingers curling as though she wished to wring the elf's neck. Her chin lifted. "Do it. Take her out."

The last syllable had barely left Gren's lips before the archers' bowstrings twanged.

The arrows lanced towards the elf's head, arrowheads glinting in the moonlight; the elf moved with inhuman speed, and the first splintered across her dagger like a brittle, useless twig.

But Gren had not chosen Amaya's best archers for nothing.

The second, staggered shot came an instant later – the precious gap in combat between a strike and a re-chambering of a weapon-arm, where a warrior was most vulnerable.

For an instant, it appeared the elf would lose an eye. Or at least receive the same scar across her right cheek that Amaya had.

But the arrow only caught the finely-woven braid at her temple, and flew on, leaving her face unmarked.

And then all was lost, because the elf made the same decision Amaya had a moment earlier; to take matters into her own hands.

The atmosphere turned from focused tension into dread.

Because this was no longer a matter of _if_ the elf would take the princes; it was now a matter of _when._

Amaya's breathing deepened. Every line of her form screamed that she wanted to run to the little group herself and take back her nephews by her own power.

The elf made her threat, lips sharp and clear in the silver moonlight, the light that gave her people the keen-bladed power she now held over the princes' throats.

And Amaya was defeated.

She did not show it except to raise an open hand to stand down the archers, but Gren matched her breathing, and knew it was anything but calm.

Not that Gren was faring better. Ezran's shout of pain as the elf dragged the boys away, daggers to their throats, was nearly enough to make Gren go for his own dagger in his boot. His fingers curled into fists; dug half-moons into his palm.

Every line of Amaya's face was utter, furious pain.

The river took the boys beyond their reach in no time at all.

A moment, in which every man and woman gathered there stared at their General, and waited with bated breath. Perhaps they expected her to scream a wordless scream; to smash her shield into the ground and curse.

She did none of those things.

 _What a general._

Gren caught her next words with narrowed, mirthless eyes.

"If the elf realises we followed them, she'll take the princes' lives," – and oh, what a horrible taste those words had – "We need to be careful."

There was only one thing to be done.

She called for Corvus.

Some part of Gren realised that, as he repeated her orders, she had prepared for this eventuality. Corvus was the best tracker the Standing Battalion had in its arsenal; his relative youth mattered little when he could move almost as silently as an elf.

Corvus began to follow the river along the soft loam at its edges; where his footsteps were silent.

Amaya was already moving: a maelstrom of tightly furled fury.

The others skirted her like fearful ships at sea on their way to the stables; Gren followed Amaya as she slammed the doors of Banther Lodge shut behind the last soldier, so hard and fast that the tin cup the soldier had been using to snuff out the lamps within tumbled to the ground.

The soldier fled for the stables without bothering to pick it up. Gren supposed that she was smart in doing so.

He stood by wordlessly, Amaya's helmet on his hip, as she fastened a chain brusquely around the iron rings. The chain clattered and rang as she forced the key into the lock and gave it such a vicious twist that Gren feared the key would break.

The key would not turn. It was not entirely surprising; it was an old lock, found in a rush in one of the lodge store-chambers.

Hard muscle contracted in the gaps between Amaya's armour. Gren took a fluid half-step back just in time to avoid the key, hurled at the flagstones with a sharp, echoing clang.

Amaya's fist slammed into the wood door; wood so ancient it would feel like stone to the touch.

Her fist made a crater in it anyway.

She breathed. It was a ragged sound in the still night air; her fringe hung jagged and loose over her lowered face.

Gren glanced over his shoulder. Not a soul to be seen; faint sounds of squeaking leather and neighing horses drifted from the stable.

Good.

He wedged her helmet between his elbow and hip and reached for the loose hand at her side with both of his.

She let him examine her knuckles for injury without comment. He made no admonition for the foolishness of punching hardened wood with an unprotected fist – only breathed a silent sigh as he confirmed that aside from a little bruising and a splinter or two, her hand was fine.

She raised her head, and looked at him as though expecting him to say words of sympathy.

Gren might have, in any other circumstance; gathered her into an embrace as he did once after the news of Sarai's death reached them.

He proffered her helmet instead. His other hand went to his chest in a gesture of fealty.

Gratitude ghosted across her gaze. And then her helmet framed her face once more, and she was General of the Standing Battalion, and General only.

Gren stooped for the key, locked the door.

They rode for the capital with Banther Lodge still and dark behind them.

* * *

The capital was still a half-league ahead when Gren heard it.

The peal of the coronation bell.

His hands tightened on the reins, slow horror creeping down his fingers; beside him, Amaya's chin moved sharply as she caught his expression.

She signaled an immediate halt.

Gren swallowed through the dust of the road and looked over his shoulder. Every soldier wore an identical expression to his.

Shock.

Sorrow.

Anger.

Even if this meant that King Harrow must be dead, there had never been a coronation held this early after the death of a sovereign.

"You hear something," Amaya said, urgently. "All of you."

"The coronation bell," Gren replied.

It was familiar, how three or four words could have such a haunting effect; he had felt the same when he signed _The Queen is dead._

Then, Amaya's expression had been one of numb shock; now, there was only immediate fury.

Gren understood.

The war had taken her sister, and now her sister's husband. It was attempting to take her nephews, too.

And now someone was trying to take the throne.

Amaya's horse was off like a bolt of rage-fed lightning. The thunder of pounding hooves shattered the still night air, morphed into clattering against cobblestones as the group burst right through the city gate and up towards the citadel.

The streets were empty, but ahead, torchlight bathed the courtyard of the citadel; there was a low murmur of many voices there, and one voice above all.

" _I will become Lord protector of this realm!"_

Gren gritted his teeth.

 _Viren._

He passed this on to Amaya with a flicker of his fingers; she narrowed her gaze like a hawk sighting her prey at last.

She signaled once, and Gren called for the war horn.

A single blast of the horn lanced through the air as they crested the last bridge to the citadel proper; on the royal balcony, Opeli the master of ceremonies startled, the crown in her hands hovering the merest inch above Viren's bowed head.

Amaya let go of her reins.

Gren inhaled through an open mouth; swallowed what little moisture into a throat completely dry from the road. It would not do to stumble over the words, not now, when the future of Katolis depended on Amaya's words.

"Stop!"

Amaya reined in her horse; it neighed in protest, a shrill, sharp sound, but she had already released the reins and flung both hands out to sign, so high and sharp that it could only mean a shout.

"Stop the coronation! The princes are alive!"

Opeli's eyes lit with hope as the crowd began to murmur in startlement. Viren's expression, on the other hand, held nothing but fathomless annoyance for the briefest moment – gone again so quickly that Gren wondered for a moment if he misread it.

Amaya dismounted and flung her reins at the nearest guard; the guard fumbled at them for a moment before Gren threw his at him, too.

The sharp clap of armoured boots against the flagstones punctuated Gren and Amaya's steps as they marched right up to Viren.

"Viren," Amaya stated.

Gren made sure to convey the fact it was less of a greeting and more of a demand for an explanation.

Viren glanced at the waiting crowd and back.

"Inside," he said, smoothly, effortlessly.

Amaya's eyes narrowed, but she followed. Gren did the same.

In the echoing expanse of the great hall, Viren gestured away the guards; attempted to dismiss Opeli, too, but the white-robed woman stared him down with a cool, expressionless mien and stayed.

"You bring great news, unlooked-for," Viren began. "We had lost all hope of the princes' survival."

Amaya raised a challenging eyebrow. "And how did you lose all hope they were alive, I wonder?"

Gren thought it an excellent question even as the last word left his lips. This was looking less and less like it was for the good of Katolis and more like an opportunistic coup.

"A mere six Moonshadow elves assassinated the king before my very eyes," Viren said, sorrow bleeding into his tone. "The princes were nowhere to be found afterwards. With that power only in those numbers, was I incorrect in assuming that the princes perished?"

Amaya nodded once, scathingly, and left her answer at that.

Viren did not flinch; but he looked like he was about to for a moment.

Gren fought a grin at that. It would be terribly inappropriate, but watching Viren squirm was poetic justice.

Amaya's head tilted.

"Where have you placed my brother-in-law?"

"The funeral was held yesterday night, in the small hours of the morning," Opeli interjected before Viren could say anything, glaring sideways at him. "Despite my vehement protest, of course. A king should be mourned seven sunsets."

Amaya's gaze was looking more and more like a promise of a quick death than an interrogative stare.

Viren cleared his throat. "And where are the princes?" he enquired gravely, looking not quite directly at her.

Amaya's expression darkened.

"Captured by a single Moonshadow elf off Banther Lodge."

A gleam entered Viren's eyes. Those who did not know him well might have thought it was a film of tears at the thought of the boys' danger; but Gren suspected otherwise.

Amaya did too, apparently. Her chin lifted–

Viren halted her with a raised hand. "I am sorry to hear it. The situation, as I understand, is precarious. But there can be no more done tonight. I suggest we reconvene tomorrow morning."

Amaya made as if to protest, but Viren turned in a swirl of dark coat and high collar and was gone.

Gren had to give the man some credit for his nerve.

Opeli inclined her head at them, whispered a word of thanks, and slipped out to address the crowds.

In the empty stillness of the entrance hall there remained only the sound of Amaya breathing.

"I need to send word to Corvus," she said, eventually. "Rest."

Gren eyed the hand she had punched the door with; it was moving with less agility than usual. He looked at it pointedly with the authority of a close friend who would not let it be.

Amaya's eyes softened at that, if only slightly. "Go," she said, with a trace of chagrin at the edge of her tired expression. "Meet me in the throne room at sunrise. I will see to this and other matters."

Gren pressed a hand to his heart, bowed, and mustered up a smile for her; her eyes traced his face with a gentle sort of exhaustion.

They had done their duty, the both of them; followed the letter they received the previous morning to the word.

It had not been nearly enough, in the end.

He strode through the keep to his and Amaya's rooms: joined chambers just off the royal family's apartments. Gren's quarters were as clean as the day he left them, a month before winter's turn; there were still a few open books scattered here and there, and someone had built a warm blaze in the fireplace.

It would seem the servants of the king remembered his family and friends, even if Viren did not.

Gren lowered himself into the chair by the fire, and felt the ache from long hours in the saddle present itself in his back and thighs immediately; he groaned and laid his head back. The headache was worse; it crashed down on him with the reminder of two days of little sleep and long travel.

He was also hungry, but too tired to bother with the citadel kitchens.

His arm shifted on the fat armrest; something was digging into his sleeve, under his left bracer. Gren undid the straps with fumbling fingers and nearly dropped the folded piece of parchment that slid out between bracer and sleeve.

He stared, for a moment, at the sharp calligraphy that spelt out the word _Amaya_ on the first leaf of the thrice-folded parchment, before the events of the last two days sorted themselves out in his mind and he remembered what it was.

His letter.

The letter he skipped breakfast for two days ago to finish writing. Truth be told, he hadn't slept much the night before, either; he had woken in the small hours of the night from dreams of Thunder and fire, and lightning that struck his shoulder and lanced down to his foot, and when he woke, he thought for a terror-filled moment that he was on the black sand of the Breach, Amaya's hitching sobs in his ears.

He had lit a single candle. Took quill and ink and parchment, sat at his desk, and written a letter; finished it as the sun began to rise, red and yellow and fiery on a new day, brushing his hand and the edge of the curling parchment with golden flame.

Gren had read the letter over on the battlements; found that he could do no better. What he had written was what was in his heart. There was no more he could say through words alone.

And then Amaya had found him there, and he had tucked the letter with a quick sleight of hand under his left bracer; not knowing that in moments a messenger eagle from the king would come.

And there the letter had remained.

Gren paused with his thumb under the edge of the folded parchment.

He knew every word by heart; agonised over every sentence. There was no need to re-read it, not now, when his first priority should be the princes and the princes alone.

Gren set it aside, stood, and undid the clasps of his armour. He set the pieces on the sideboard, washed his face and hands with the jug of water there, shucked his boots, and fell into bed fully clothed, riding-trousers and all.

He fell asleep to the sound of wind whispering through the citadel orchard.

The dying embers of the fire glowed faintly. The light bled over the table beside the hearth; brought a deep shine to the inked words on the parchment.

 _Amaya_ , the first line read.

There were six words below it.

 _In the event of my death._

The night wore on, and the sun rose once more on a kingdom with an empty throne.

* * *

 **Next Chapter:** A realisation, betrayal, chains against a dungeon wall, and a precious letter.

This next one I'll put up in two days! In the meantime, I'm trying to use this short two-day break I have to write the next chapter of _The Silent Song_.


	6. The Confession

**A/N: And this brings us up to date with where we are with this fic on tumblr! I'm two thirds of the way through writing the next chapter of _The Silent Song_ , so that should be up in two days or so.**

* * *

 _Chapter 6: The Confession_

* * *

Daybreak found Amaya waiting in the throne room by one of its arched windows.

The rising sun drenched stone floors in gold and limned the scarlet of the processional carpet with gilt thread. The warmth of those rays was a living thing that soothed her exhausted heart, even though she knew it would dissipate with as the sun sailed higher above the horizon.

She had found no rest that past night; no counsel except her own, taken by light of guttering candle, while Gren slept soundly in the next chamber.

There were three problems in her hands.

First, and by far the most important – her nephews, and the Moonshadow elf that had captured them. Corvus could track as silently and swiftly as a lynx; with luck, he would catch up to the boys by mid-morning.

Second, Viren. His haste in arranging Harrow's funeral spoke volumes of his true intentions; patriot he might be, there was something in his actions that edged a little too close to treason for Amaya's liking. It would not do to leave him unwatched.

Third, the Breach. Amaya did not doubt her soldiers' ability to hold the fortress against the forces of Xadia; but should Xadia take the empty throne of Katolis as an opportunity to launch a combined attack, her absence there would be keenly felt. Morale was a fickle thing. It depended on the presence of a leader that every soldier could trust.

Three problems, and she could only be in one place at once.

Amaya sighed. Rested her head against the warm stone of the throne room wall for a moment. The sun was halfway visible over the horizon, now.

She had come to a decision last night, with her head bowed over the flickering light of the candle before her.

Whether the decision would come to anything would greatly depend upon Viren's actions in the coming few hours; but should he still persist in his veiled, ulterior motives–

–Amaya would have no choice except to leave Gren here, as her eyes and ears.

And therein lay Amaya's final and most unexpected problem; one she had not anticipated, or perhaps did not wish to admit to herself.

 _She did not want to leave her commander behind._

Viren remained as wily as a viper, despite their long acquaintance. Amaya had no doubt Gren was as aware of this as she, but all logic aside, should he remain, and Viren strike…

Amaya fought back the shudder that rose up from her gut; an aching, senseless thing of denial.

Gren, her commander and closest friend, and–

 _And what?_ The words flickered before her, mockingly. _And what more?_

Two days ago, she had found him on the battlements of the fortress at the Breach; he had skipped breakfast to write a letter; tucked it away under his bracer with haste when he spotted her.

They had stood and watched each other, as they seemed to do more often in recent months, since she had almost lost Gren on the eve of last Winter's Turn. For a moment there, she had wondered if the words he meant to say on the battlefield were not _I thank you_ , but rather–

Footsteps vibrated up her armoured boots from the stone floor; a tread she could not hear, but as familiar to her as her own.

The sun was well and truly risen, now; the light crept up her cheeks without warning and dazzled her vision, and she turned, blinking the spots out of her gaze, to find Gren in the shadow of a pillar, blue eyes calm and waiting. His gaze flickered over the sunlight on her cheek, and deepened with an unreadable emotion.

Seeing him there made the ache of their all-too-likely parting well up afresh.

Amaya knew Gren had a lighter tread – he could have stepped right up to her without her notice, but as always he chose to put more force into his steps than usual when he approached from behind; so that she would know he was coming.

He had never said anything.

Neither had Amaya.

But perhaps…perhaps when this was over, they _should_.

Talk. Of all the things they had never said.

Gren pushed himself off the pillar with a nudge of his shoulder, to free both arms to speak. "Good morning."

And there was that smile again – a flash of gentle humour despite the earth-shattering events of the past few days.

That smile used to bring warmth like hearthfire; now it made her stomach flip in an inexplicable surge of ice and flame.

"Good morning," Amaya echoed. Her hand – the same hand that had nearly betrayed her by reaching out for Gren's sleeping features, beside a campfire only two nights ago – hesitated briefly as she lowered it. It clenched at her side as she fought against the urge to ask what they had no time for.

Gren's sharp eyes caught the motion. He straightened and raised his hands to speak. There was hope in his gaze, hidden behind the thinnest veil of control.

 _Oh,_ Amaya thought numbly, as she watched his fingers slide into the bar of sunlight to form the first word. _Perhaps we both wish to ask the same question._

"Amaya," Gren began, "Do you–"

He broke off as his chin snapped towards the double doors of the throne room.

Amaya swallowed past the painful lump in her throat; quelled the urge to pull him into the shadow of an alcove and _say_ the things they wished to say, where neither of them could miss the truth of the words they held.

Gren gestured to the opposite side of the chamber, and they hastened across the expanse of scarlet cloth, leaving the warmth of the Eastern window for a shadowed pillar. Gren's head was still cocked to one side as he listened for what Amaya could not hear, but after a moment he nodded once, sharply, and signed, _"Viren."_

Amaya watched him, still, and as he met her eyes his shoulders dropped a little out of their automatic tension, eyes softening at the corners.

There were many things that Amaya wished; but sometimes, wishing was all she had.

The heavy double doors opened and closed again, a palpable tremble from the flagstones up to Amaya's ankles, and she straightened, shoulders back and head held high – the perfect image of a General.

Gren's head inclined just so. Acceptance. He took a step back and turned towards the centre of the chamber: once more her interpreter.

They fell into their separate roles with familiar ease. The fact that neither of them truly wished it meant little at this moment. There were more important things to handle.

Amaya took a breath, stepped forward, and began to sign.

"Thought I might run into you here."

Viren turned languidly in place to face them. He looked…good. As though he had the most refreshing night of sleep – as though the kingdom was not in shambles and its princes in the clutches of an Elven assassin.

Amaya clenched her teeth and stared him down, fingers flashing. Gren's lips moved in the periphery of her vision.

"We need to talk."

If anything, Viren's haughtiness seemed to grow further. With one hand he indicated that he was listening, though his expression said anything but. A fox-faced smile – the smile of a man who would let her say her piece and then throw it into the dirt-pile.

It reminded Amaya of the yawning emptiness to her right – her brother-in-law's throne, bereft of its king and rightful heir. Harrow's body now lay with his forefathers in the Valley of Graves, a scant day after his passing.

It filled her with incandescent rage.

"How could you let it come to this?"

"You speak as if I invited these assassins," Viren said, dropping one arm out from behind his back as though in readiness to strike.

Oh, she would like to see him try. "I had to leave our stronghold at the Breach," she continued. "Do you have any _idea_ ," – she emphasised the word by the set of her shoulders – "the dangerous forces gathered at our border?"

"I did everything in my power to protect King Harrow. I was willing to give my own life!" Viren countered. There was a thinned quality to the shapes of his lips that suggested his control had slipped enough to raise his voice.

"Then what went wrong?" Amaya challenged.

"He did." Viren threw out an arm towards the empty throne, with such vehemence that Amaya could almost see the shadow of a silver dagger that would have pierced the uneven towers of the tapestry behind it.

Viren was not done. His lips were curling in what must be a true shout, now. "His own stubborn ways stopped me from helping him. You know him as well as I do. His pride was more important to him than his life!"

Your pride _is_ your life, Amaya wanted to say. But she reined back the words.

"You wanted this outcome," she accused instead. Gren's presence was solid behind her shoulder; she felt him lean forward to convey her exact meaning.

Instantly, she could see she had pushed too far. Or perhaps _just right_ , like the keen blade of a sword-thrust right past Viren's veiled armour and directly into his heart of hearts.

Viren's eyes flashed. "How dare you suggest–"

Something twisted in Amaya's stomach, vicious. _Got you._

Oh, she was not done, not in the slightest. She pushed on with calculated severity. "His death creates opportunity for you."

"His death breaks my heart," Viren said, lips bared. Anger. Offense.

To one who only knew him in passing, that anger might be taken as sheer incredulity that anyone would accuse him of exploiting his old friend's assassination; to any who knew him well, his anger was just what it was. Rage. Pride. Hurt, but perhaps not the kind that stemmed from being wronged.

Amaya laid her trap, then; a test of candor, a trial that might determine if Viren truly was the snake she suspected.

"Then honour him. Find his children."

His chest expanded as he sucked in a breath to fuel his next words. "They're gone, Amaya. Captured by a Moonshadow elf."

He looked, in that moment, almost like a grieving uncle.

Almost.

Amaya was once again reminded that it was a good thing she withheld Corvus's mission from him.

Viren was not done. "If they're not already dead, they will be soon." His sceptre slammed into the floor in a jolt that ran up Amaya's greaves. "This is a time of crisis," he continued, turning to move up towards the dias and the throne upon it.

Amaya's eyes narrowed. If Viren were to show even an ounce of intent to sit upon that seat…

But her thoughts were left unfounded. Viren brushed the fingers of one hand over one worn armrest, and said, "An empty throne is beacon of weakness. An invitation to destroy us."

 _So are many other things,_ Amaya privately thought. _Missing princes. A fortress without its general. The cruel ambition of a kingdom's chief advisor and sorcerer._

"We must defend Katolis and all the human kingdoms against what's coming." Viren gestured at the throne. "I can help us from there."

Amaya shook her head once.

Astoundingly, Viren was not done.

"You think I'm being an opportunist, but I couldn't be more selfless in my motivation. I am a servant of Katolis. A servant!" He brought down his sceptre on that last word, a jarring, metallic jolt through Amaya's ankles – like a judge with a gavel, or a king's announcer.

Viren was neither.

But here there was something strange, in Viren's choice of words; a twisting of his expression as he spoke those latter words, old pain and dissatisfaction and bitterness, which morphed the shape of his words into snarls.

A moment, where Amaya watched Viren breathe, as she calmly moved her hands, fluid and unyielding.

"Those are awfully nice clothes for a humble servant, Viren." Amaya could _sense_ Gren's cocky grin as he finished the sentence. It comforted her, here where Katolis hung in the balance between her and Viren's wills.

Something flashed in Viren's gaze, still and dark and unreadable. Then he did something unexpected – he stood aside and inclined his head.

"Then you take it. Go ahead, sit down. I'll support you as queen regent."

For a moment there, Amaya wondered. There was no possibility of her taking the throne, of course, but to offer it like so was beyond what she had expected of Viren. Was he, misguided in his efforts as he was, truly thinking of Katolis and her people?

Viren's next words took that possibility and threw it out the window as neatly as one of her famous front kicks.

"I'll gather the High Council, and we'll send word to the other crowns of the Pentarchy immediately."

He expected her to say yes.

Because that was what _Viren_ would have done.

Amaya sank further into her stance. Narrowed her eyes into slits. She would _not_ take her brother-in-law's throne, and her nephew's by inheritance.

Sarai would have had just the thing to say; assisted Amaya, even, in heaving Viren bodily out of a window.

Oh, she missed her sister so, so much.

Anger steadied her hands as she replied, "The throne stays empty until we find the boys."

The darkness in Viren's eyes became _less_ unreadable, at that. He opened his mouth in a soundless snarl and stalked down from the dias, taking care to slam the sharp edge of his sceptre head into Gren's unarmoured chest as he shoved between them.

Amaya spared Gren a glance, and watched as Viren threw open the doors and faded down the corridor.

And then it was simply the throne room Amaya knew so well, without Viren's polluting presence in it.

Two breaths, slow and even; Amaya closed her eyes briefly, and then reached out to splay a gentle hand on Gren's front, where a dent in leather marked the spot where sharp silver dug into his sternum.

The steady movement of Gren's breathing hitched as her fingers brushed his chest.

Amaya was instantly alert; if such a soft touch was enough to cause pain, then Viren must have struck him with much more force than she thought–

But Gren only reached up to grasp her hand where it was pressed into his sternum. The steady rhythm of his heart thudded against her fingers, even through reinforced leather and thick riding gloves.

"I'm fine," he said with his lips, the shapes familiar. "It doesn't hurt."

There was truth in his eyes.

But standing there with her fingers against the flow of his heart, she could only remember the sheer desperation that slammed through hers when she felt nothing but still and cold leather under her touch, on the battlefield last Winter's Turn.

She had seen him fall – the lightning strike that cleaved through him from shoulder to foot. Her mad scramble to him then and the desperate pressure of her hands against his chest to beat his heart back to life was no more than a memory; but now, even with evidence of his life pressed against her palm she remembered what it was like to feel no pulse, no warmth, and no _Gren_ there.

And now she might have no choice but to send him to do what she could not.

Amaya fought the shudder when it came.

Gren was looking at her with that expression that he sometimes wore, that in recent times made her wonder at the depth of emotion in his quiet blue eyes.

She slipped her hand out from between his fingers and his tunic. He let her go without complaint.

Amaya looked past Gren to the window, where the morning light had settled to a pale, wintry shine; the light filtered over her hands, weightless.

"I need to speak to my sister."

* * *

They rode together down to the Valley of Graves, side-by-side, wordless.

Their horses were familiar enough with them to likely have continued onwards if they chose to slacken their reins, but neither did; there was a comfort and ease in their companionship that went beyond the need to speak.

Gren's spirits lifted slightly despite the earlier clash with Viren; riding with Amaya like this reminded him of the earlier years of their friendship, riding out together through the wildlands at the border, before Queen Sarai's passing.

And there, digging into his wrist between his bracer and long-sleeved tunic, was a letter.

The letter he had finished writing two days ago on the battlements on the fortress at the Breach; the letter that he had tucked under his bracer when Amaya sought him there, and which he had carried with him all the way here when the urgent summons from King Harrow came.

The letter that was addressed _Amaya – in the event of my death._

Not that he thought there were any after his blood – but after waking on the frozen battlefield of last Winter's Turn with Amaya's hitching sobs at his side and his ribs aching from the press of her hands that had restarted his heart, he had thought it would do to be better prepared.

The wind picked up. Gren breathed in the fresh air and shook his head; the letter might be under his bracer, but there was no cause to give it to Amaya yet.

Their horses' hooves trotted at a steady pace through the forest and canyon, to the edge of the small lake guarded on all sides by statues of past kings and queens. The thunder of the distant waterfall was a soothing, steady drumbeat where Katolis itself was in turmoil.

There, the final guard to the stone platform for funeral rites and the graves of kings by the shore, stood Queen Sarai's monument. Her smiling likeness was captured forever in stone, on horseback and in full armour, one hand grasping her spear and the other extended in gentle grace.

Gren always thought it was as though she extended her love and sympathy to each mourner who chose to visit the valley – offering to take their hand and lead them through the canyon and forest to the welcoming lights of home.

Amaya's horse snorted as she dismounted. Gren followed suit, but stood back as he did on the morning after the queen's funeral, when they had ridden here with raw hearts and fresh grief.

Then, Amaya had spoken to her sister, and then extended a hand to Gren much like her sister above; the two of them had rested together in Sarai's presence until grief became hope.

Now, Gren settled a few paces away as Amaya looked up into her sister's gentle features and signed, "Hello, sister."

Amaya's armour shifted audibly as she knelt. Even now, at mid-morning, there were candles flickering at the foot of Sarai's grave; the people of Katolis loved their queen as they did their king.

Gren watched as Amaya lit a fresh candle with another, bowed her head, and began to sign. His heart wrenched as she spoke; the shapes of her words had always been lovely to him, but there was a tenderness and grace to them as she spoke to her sister that turned the dance of her hands heart-achingly beautiful.

"You were my hero," Amaya said, and Gren knew from the angle of her head and the drop in her shoulders that her grief was still there, welling up afresh. "Perfect, strong, and unbreakable. Kind and loyal. I'm sorry, older sister. I failed you. Your children were safe and I let them slip away."

Gren closed his eyes as he raised his face to the queen. The princes' capture was in part his fault, as well, and there was no denying it; he breathed a silent promise to Queen Sarai that he would do his part in returning her children. His heart ached for them all; the late Queen, gone so young, the King taken for his country, the princes who even now were held in the deadly grasp of Moonshadow elves.

His general, whom he loved so much, who could lose the last family she had left.

Behind him, a horse's neigh echoed down the canyon. Gren half-turned, eyes sharp, to find a familiar figure approaching.

Lord Viren had none of the fiery discontent he had in his gaze an hour previous; he moved past Gren without meeting his eyes, focused instead on Amaya's still-kneeling form.

Gren let him pass, the spot on his sternum where Viren's sceptre had dug into his skin tingling. His hands loosened at his sides, though for what he did not wonder; there was no possibility of winning any fight against Viren, but that did not mean Gren could not prepare for it.

He followed Viren's every move with wary caution. If the man showed even a subtle indication he meant ill, Gren would know.

But Viren did nothing but step forward until the impact of his sceptre against the ground reached Amaya's knees; she raised her head and looked up at him.

His voice was soft. Remorseful. "May I light a candle?"

Gren could see the moment Amaya decided to put aside their differences. Her lips curved as her eyes softened, and she looked so much like her sister in that moment that Gren almost looked away.

Viren knelt beside her and reached for a candle, and Gren loosed a breath. His hands returned to the small of his back.

This was a moment of quiet truce, and he would not interrupt it.

When a span of time passed, Amaya got to her feet and stepped back. Viren rose after her, smiled up at the late queen with fond memory.

"Your sister made him better," he said, and for a moment he looked as he must have as a young man, best friends with the crown prince of Katolis; for all intents and purposes almost a spare, sworn to the service of the crown. "Harrow told me he was never as strong or brave as Queen Sarai believed him to be, but he tried every day to be stronger and braver so he could live up to what she saw in him."

A small smile tugged at Gren's lips, despite himself. Viren's words struck deeper than Gren expected; the praise of a loved one had a way of bringing out one's determination to grow, to rise to that regard.

He knew because Amaya so valued his friendship. And he valued her beyond that, even.

A beautiful thing, to love.

Amaya's hands moved in the corner of his vision, and his eyes slid to her hands like centering of his self.

"She was compassionate and patient." Fond memory rose as he read her next words. "Unless, of course, you took the last jelly tart."

Viren chuckled. "I only made that mistake once."

Gren remembered the consequences of his own mistake well enough; Sarai had chased him through the halls and nearly to the castle bridge the one time he had taken the last jelly tart at breakfast, his first time visiting the royal family in his early days as Amaya's interpreter.

They had called a truce and broken the jelly tart in half, and Amaya's laughter, when they returned, had been reward enough for the sheer fear Gren had experienced at Sarai's hands.

Amaya's laughter now was a light, soft thing that eased a knot of worry in Gren's chest.

"A sweet tooth and an iron fist."

Viren inclined his head, contrite. "General Amaya, I am sorry for what happened in the throne room. You helped me see the truth."

Amaya's head tilted.

"And why was that so hard?"

Viren moved forward. "I was blinded by my abiding love for our kingdom and humanity itself."

And well, if _that_ wasn't evidence for Viren's propensity for hyperbole.

Gren raised an eyebrow, but Amaya's fingers were already flicking with sharp wit.

"Guard, fetch a stable boy, quickly," he interpreted, leaning eagerly into her implied tone and staring Viren down. "I've encountered a giant pile of bull–" Gren's eyes widened slightly at Amaya's last word, even as he failed to suppress a grin. "–droppings," he amended, eyes sliding from Amaya to Viren and away again to avoid the consequences of smirking perhaps a little too obviously.

But Amaya was smirking as well, so perhaps it wasn't too bad.

Oh, Gren loved her so much.

Viren breathed a laugh. "The princes come first," he admitted. "Finding them is absolutely the top priority of the kingdom of Katolis."

"Good, you see it my way," Amaya said, and Gren noticed as he spoke for her that she seemed almost relieved. "I'll be departing at sundown with a rescue party."

Even as Gren finished the sentence, he became aware that the relief was not entirely for the princes. It was more obvious in the way she gestured at him to follow with a subtle flick of her fingers at her side as she turned.

But he had no time to wonder at it, for a voice sounded over his shoulder, and his hands moved automatically to translate.

"Of course," Viren said, all ease. "But allow me to ask: What happens to the Breach?"

Amaya stopped mid-stride, eyes fixed on Gren's hands. As she turned in place her eyes met his in a look of shared understanding.

It had been too good to be true.

Viren barely waited until Amaya faced him before continuing, the words coming fast and ruthlessly logical. "You said yourself how precarious the situation is. Without you there commanding the fortress, do you believe, in your heart, that the border will hold?"

Gren's scrutiny slid from Viren to Amaya, and found her holding her chin high, tight-lipped.

 _Oh._

So she had already given the matter thought. And in this, she could not disagree.

"Make your point."

Viren's eyes glittered. "If the Breach falls, the enemy will surge into Katolis, and I can hardly imagine the death and destruction that will follow."

Amaya's face remained closed.

"Then what are you suggesting?"

Gren knew Viren's answer even before he finished speaking.

"You return to the border, hold it fast. It's where you're needed most," Viren said – and the worst thing about it was that he was right, to some extent. "A party of our best will be dispatched immediately to find the princes."

Amaya's jaw tightened under the sweep of her fringe past her left cheekbone.

Gren shifted into readiness as Viren approached.

"And in case you still doubt my intentions, I will task my own children, Soren and Claudia, with leading the rescue expedition," Viren concluded.

It was an impressive offer.

Gren didn't think it amounted to much. Amaya apparently didn't think so either, because she stepped into Viren's circle of space and nudged him hard in the chest with a pointed finger.

"I do doubt your intentions. I will return to the breach, but your children won't lead the rescue."

Gren narrowed his eyes as he spoke; Amaya's choice of words means that she had decided on another course of action.

Amaya's hands moved on, sure, steady.

"The mission will be assigned to…" Gren stopped, as _meaning_ caught up with the shape of Amaya's fingers. "Commander Gren," he stumbled, after a pause, eyes widening in question as Amaya looked at him with an expression that said _yes,_ _you didn't read that wrong._

What.

In his surprise, he did what he had not done in years; continued to stammer where he had learnt to shut up and finish off. "That's– that's me," he spluttered. "I– I am Commander Gren."

He probably looked a lot younger and a lot less bright than he meant to, saying that. He fought back the blush that threatened to rise in his cheeks and ears, too – it had been _years_ since had flushed in public, for Katolis's sake!

Viren looked askance at him as though gauging his worth and finding him lacking, but agreed to it nonetheless and headed towards the waiting horses.

In the perfect silence after his departure, Gren looked at Amaya and waited.

Surprisingly, Amaya wasn't smiling; she was looking at him with something so much like dread that it Gren felt his stomach drop.

"Amaya?" he said, using his hands so Viren would not hear.

* * *

It had been a long time since Amaya had felt such trepidation. Seeing her nephews in the clutches of that Moonshadow elf had been different. There had been things she could have done then.

There was nothing she could do now; she _had_ to leave Gren here, as she had known was a possibility. It was a consequence of their vows of service to Katolis, Viren's ulterior motives, and the fact that of all the people who remained alive in the world, there were none whom Amaya trusted more than Gren.

And none she could not bear to part with as much as he.

She tilted her head in the direction of the kings' graves, partly to pay Harrow the respects he was due, and partly to delay the conversation and think on her words.

The King's grave was of white marble, freshly hewn; Amaya and Gren bowed their heads as one.

When they rose, the sun had ascended to its zenith. The two of them hardly threw any shadows, now; drenched in sunlight, there was nothing Amaya could do to hide.

Halfway back to the horses, Amaya paused. Raised her head to meet Gren's gaze.

"Be careful," she began. "Watch him. We can't be sure what he intends." There. She has phrased it in such a way that it is – that is to say, it is not about–

Gren's eyes soften at the corners. "You knew this might happen," he said. There was nothing accusing in the angle of his chin or in the earnestness of his expression.

Amaya almost wished there was. The fact that he stood before her utterly accepting of the double task she had laid on his shoulders somehow made it worse.

"You are…" Amaya tried. Stopped.

Gren waited.

"I can't withdraw you from this mission simply because I–" Amaya's hands stuttered over the next word, re-formed another. "Simply because you're you."

Gren's chest rose and fell. He was looking at her with an expression that held both understanding and hope.

Amaya reached out and took his hand, and he stared down at it and back up again, the hope in his eyes visibly coalescing into something like disbelief.

"Gren," she said, releasing him momentarily to speak, "After you find the boys, and return to the Breach, I think we should talk." She paused, weighed her next words. "I think I can guess the words you want to say. And I have something to say in return."

She threaded her fingers through Gren's again, her fingers incredibly sensitive even through her gloves; Amaya forced herself to look away from their clasped hands and into Gren's face instead.

Gren was still staring down at her. Sometimes she forgot, because he stood to the side behind her so much when he interpreted, that he was taller than her.

His free hand moved.

"I'd like that," he replied. Raw emotion hovered behind his lips; he looked very close to exuberant joy.

Amaya nodded once, and forced herself to take the first step towards the horses, pulling Gren beside her with their still-woven fingers; she knew if she stepped towards him she would never be able to stick to her decision to make him stay and be her eyes and ears.

Their hands remained clasped tight the entire ride back to the citadel; the first and the last of a familiar hold, sword-callouses against ink-stains.

In the courtyard they parted, fingers slipping over each other and reaching out again for that lost warmth even as they edged their horses further apart and dismounted.

* * *

Dusk drew ochre veils across the citadel.

The reddish light of the setting sun on the battlements mimicked the fiery glow of the Breach; Gren spared the sky a small smile as he crossed the courtyard.

He surveyed the soldiers arrayed in the courtyard. Most were already mounted and ready for the ride back to the Breach, but two remained on foot, spears in their hands – they would ride out under Gren's command after the others departed.

The two foot-soldiers saluted him, hands to their chests, and Gren acknowledged them with a nod.

Amaya's distinctive armoured footsteps approached from his left, accompanied by the clip-clop of her war horse, and Gren stood back and dipped his head in greeting. They shared a single, steady look, one that edged their smiles with further warmth, before facing Gren's soldiers to issue last orders.

Gren fell easily back into interpreting as Amaya began.

"I've sent word to Corvus that King Harrow has passed."

One of the soldiers nodded and stepped forward. "Is Lord Viren aware that Corvus has been tracking the princes?"

Amaya shook her head.

"No," she signed, and stepped closer to Gren to look at him in equal part as he spoke her words. "Do not trust Viren. It may be a month from now, it may be a year, but he _will_ stab you in the back."

The words were supposed to be advice to their soldiers, but there was a ferocity in the way Amaya stared into Gren's face as she finished the sentence that belied the true target.

Amaya turned that heated gaze to the two again, and Gren knew she was giving them one more order without having Gren speak: _Protect Commander Gren._

A sharp nod from both helmeted heads. They were both veterans of the Standing Battalion, these two; they understood well enough.

But there was still a tension in Amaya's shoulders that only those who knew her best could see. So Gren leant into her peripheral vision to make only promise he could give.

"I'll be careful," he said.

And he would have said more, if she did not turn to him with the fluid grace of a trained warrior and press a single gloved finger to his lips.

The words stuck in Gren's chest, somewhere around his hammering heart. He stared at the way Amaya's lips softened into a smile, as if acknowledging his move.

He raised his eyes to meet hers, and her smile softened further.

She drew back her hand to speak. He felt the absence like an echo of warmth.

Amaya held his gaze captive as she spoke, hands close to her chest and high enough that he found himself drinking in both her face and her hands. "Gren, I trust you," she said. "You have been my voice, and now I need you to be my will and find the boys."

He looked at her and thought, belatedly, how miraculous it was there was still a word that could describe her now, with the setting sun edging the shapes of her words in amber and dusting her dark eyes with gold.

 _Amaya._

Gren pressed a hand to his chest and bowed. He could not say what he wanted to, but he hoped that this would convey even a little of it: an offering of his heart, his fealty, and even his life, should it come to that.

As he straightened she was already reaching up for his shoulders to pull him into an embrace, and he knew as he felt her bury her face in his shoulder that she understood, if only in part.

He hugged her back with as much restrained ferocity as he dared, here before so many eyes; his hands slipped behind her shield to cross against her back. There was always an element of surprise at the ease with which she fitted in his embrace – a general with unparalleled strength who was willing to acknowledge that she had to stretch to wrap both arms around him while his breaths ruffled her hair.

Gren closed his eyes against the sunset, the citadel and the fading light, and stretched out this moment as long as he could.

But all too soon her hold loosened, and he straightened the same time she did, hands loose upon his shoulders and her side.

She smiled at him – an expression of trust, and fondness, and hope – and strode away.

The ephemeral weight of her hands on his shoulders remained, and gave Gren fortitude enough to return her smile, tilting his head a little as if to say, _Good luck_.

She paused by her horse, eyes brushing over his face and his freckles as though committing him to memory, and swung herself into the saddle.

Two silhouettes appeared to Gren's right. Viren and his son Soren approached, casting long shadows in the waning light.

Amaya's face set into cool command. Her fingers rose, blade-like in precision, and Gren straightened to speak.

"I expect to be notified when the princes are found. And safe."

Gren closed his eyes and inclined his head as Amaya nudged her horse in a turn around the three of them, to face the archway to the bridge.

"I'll send word to the Breach immediately," Viren was saying, but Gren, as he raised his head, only looked up at his general.

And Amaya's gaze, though she nodded in acknowledgement, rested on her commander.

A horse's clear cry as Amaya kneed her battle-charger into a rearing gallop, and the thunder of hooves on flagstones echoed through the archway and curved around the corner, and Amaya and her soldiers were gone.

Gren looked after them for a long moment, willing himself to center. He forced his hands to remain loose where they were clasped at his back.

"Oh, Gren?"

Soren's voice was clear enough; Gren's eyes slid to his right to look at the younger man – boy, really – and mused, in the split second before Soren continued, that Soren had not changed much at all in the years since Gren had first met him. A boy who worshiped his father, even if perhaps his father did not value it. Gren almost felt sorry for him in that regard.

"Bad news," Soren said, voice dipping into a drawl. "There's been a change of plans."

The words crashed down onto Gren's shoulders like battle adrenaline, diplomat as he was. He felt the sheathed dagger in his boot dig into the side of his calf as he spun to look at Viren and his son.

Viren was smirking.

" _What_ are you talking about?" Gren said, sharply. He turned to Viren. "What is he talking about?"

Viren was the one to answer. "Oh, I've decided you're off the mission," he said, voice like silk-smoothed wine. "Soren will lead the rescue expedition."

Gren stared at Viren's crocodile smile and Soren's _my-father-gave-me-an-important-mission_ nod, and Gren's jaw slackened.

"What? General Amaya was _very_ specific that I was to lead this!" Somewhere in the middle of that sentence his shock had been overtaken by sheer incredulity – he felt his eyes tighten at he corners as he leant into his protest.

Viren had the expression of a mountain lynx that had caught a particularly fat prey. "Oh, perhaps there was a misunderstanding?" he said, voice liltingly, placatingly calm, like a father explaining something obvious to a small and very stupid child. "Soren, set up a meeting for Commander Gren and I to…discuss his concerns."

Soren nodded and grinned, and Gren wondered detachedly whether the young man had any idea how his father was using him.

Viren paused halfway into the tower entrance. "Somewhere quiet," he added. "Say, around nine?"

Only years as a diplomat kept Gren's eyes from widening and his hands from forming fists.

That was a coded order if he ever heard one.

He let his shoulders drop. "Yes, very good," he said, even as the fingers of his left hand curled into signals at his side. "Nine…suits my schedule."

Every part of his head was screaming at him to turn and check whether the two members of the Standing Battalion stood a little ways away had seen his signal, but he forced himself to keep his head down, dejected, harmless.

He heard one soldier excuse herself, the sound of her armoured boots clicking casually against the flagstones. She was headed for the stables, no doubt to race after Amaya and her platoon.

Gren's relief at that was short-lived.

Soren's eyes flashed once – a fool for his father, people might whisper behind his back, but an _idiot_ he was not – and his hands lanced out viper-swift for Gren's wrist and neck.

Gren twisted away, shouting, and heard over the drumbeat of blood in his ears the clatter of a falling spear as members of Soren's guard tackled Gren's two soldiers to the ground. The cry of the soldier who had gone for the stables accompanied the _crack_ of her helmet against stone.

Gren's fingers had found the dagger in his boot, though he rebelled at the thought of using it – not against Soren, barely eighteen, and a family friend of the royal house of Katolis since his birth.

Soren looked at Gren's dagger, smirked in an incredibly accurate imitation of his father, and drew his sword.

And Gren, for all the self-defense lessons Amaya had given him, never had a chance.

He fought like a cornered animal anyway.

The dagger was ripped from his hand. Gren took advantage of the fact that Soren meant to capture and not kill by sinking his teeth into the underside of Soren's arm, where the bracer did not protect him. Soren howled and dropped his sword, and Gren grabbed Soren's head of perfectly-shaped blonde hair and _yanked_ as hard as he could.

Soren's screech was immensely satisfying, but the blow to Gren's solar plexus was not.

All the air in his lungs left him at once.

Soren's hand grasped Gren's shoulder and slammed him bodily into the ground.

Gren choked in a breath.

"Amaya," he croaked. The sound was lost in Soren's very vocal whoop of victory.

"Amaya," Gren tried again. "Amaya!" he shouted, a full-throated yell that sent the birds that had returned to their roosts rising off the battlements in a cacophony of shrieking protest.

There was no way she could hear him. Not even those with her, surely out of the citadel and well across the bridge now.

Gren shouted anyway.

A hand clasped over his mouth, and no matter how Gren scratched and bit and writhed, more arms and legs pressed him down until rough hands pulled his arms behind him and fastened cold iron against his wrists.

He stopped struggling, then. To continue would risk injuring his hands.

They hauled him away – his two soldiers to the common dungeons, but Gren blindfolded, through familiar echoes and then unfamiliar, through passageways and down circle after circle of stone steps until the chains at his wrists were exchanged for different ones, heavier, thicker.

Gren winced as Soren ripped off his blindfold, revealing a windowless chamber bathed in murky blue light.

"Hey, Gren, it's not personal," Soren said jovially, as he tossed the blindfold over his shoulder. "No hard feelings?"

Gren stared at him.

Soren shrugged. "Eh. Your choice." His armour clanked obnoxiously as he disappeared up the spiral stars.

Gren swallowed.

The chamber was still.

Bookshelves. Strange artifacts, fire-pokers and blacksmith's tools lined up against the wall; luminescent blue crystals, the light of which overwhelmed what scant pools of yellow light given by thin candles. Strange objects covered with cloth, chains dangling from the ceiling, and all manner of preserved animals frozen with snarls on their faces.

The silence of the chamber was almost oppressive; not a breath of wind, a mustiness to the air that spoke of somewhere either deep underground or very much hidden.

And worse…

Gren craned his neck back to look at his hands. They swayed above him, held with manacles clasped around his wrists, where his bracers met his skin. A chain stretched up above each shackle to the wall, where the chains ran into hidden recesses.

Gren jangled the chains experimentally. They barely moved, heavy and solid.

Sound seemed to thin to his left, which suggested a doorway; Gren heaved against the chains as much as he could to twist his neck and look over his shoulder.

Darkness loomed beyond the archway, so still and silent that Gren swallowed and settle back to stand against the wall.

The chains.

The chains were going to be a problem.

For the moment, it was manageable; Gren could shift his wrists a little in the iron bonds, alternate the spread of weight on the heels of his hands. The wall was solid enough to lean upon.

The true danger would come should his feet grow tired, or if he needed to sleep. Then, the whole weight of his armour and body would strain on the join between his wrist and his hands, bruising in places and leaving others bereft of blood.

Gren's heart kicked into a racing rhythm as he considered the very real possibility that he might lose his hands.

 _Amaya._

Already, his shoulders had begun to ache, and his fingers tingled from the struggle of pumping blood up to his fingertips; His wrists were icy and hot at once against the rough rust of their bindings.

Gren took a breath.

He straightened his shoulders deliberately; planted his feet even and sure on the stone floor, leant as much of his weight as he dared on the wall behind him.

And he waited.

It didn't matter how long. He was good at it.

* * *

Viren's face, when he appeared, was all affability.

"Ah," he breathed. "Five past nine. I apologise for my tardiness."

Head lowered, one foot propped up against the wall – if he had to put up a show, he _would_ – Gren considered his options, and decided a little sarcasm wouldn't go amiss.

"It was only five minutes," he stated, perfectly evenly.

Viren nodded as he approached, a pleased smile on his features. "What are your concerns?"

And there was that tone again – the one used for an insufferable lesser being one had to listen to.

"Well." Gren cleared his throat, tamped down on the urge to growl. "You took me off the mission," he said, conversationally.

"Hmm. Noted. Go on."

"And," Gren continued, with slight aggravation, "You threw me in this dungeon."

"Ah, I see," Viren said, looking quite contrite. "Anything else?"

 _Your filthy hands and your traitorous heart,_ Gren wanted to say.

But that would get him no information.

"Uh, no," he said instead. "But…no. I guess those are the main two."

Viren had the gall to press a hand to his chest and incline his head formally. "Thank you. Your feedback is a gift."

Gren's eyes sharpened, and he might have loosened his tongue to say more, should Viren's daughter not have leant into the room at the far archway.

"Father, it's about our other prisoner."

Viren looked at Claudia a moment, and strode after her without a word.

Gren rearranged his posture to take the strain off his wrists. Mused on this new bit of information.

 _Other prisoner._

Intriguing.

But as the hours lengthened, Gren's mind turned increasingly more to the pain in his shoulders and the ache in his wrists, back and legs.

His letter to Amaya was a hard wedge of parchment across the back of his forearm, under his bracer. He focused on that to the exclusion of all else.

 _Don't fall asleep,_ Gren told himself.

Don't fall asleep.

Don't fall asleep…

* * *

The stamping of boots against stone jolted Gren to full awareness. He had not been truly asleep – his hands and wrists would have been in agony if he was – but he had been resting more weight on his bindings than he liked.

He straightened, shaking himself awake, and forced his fists to open and shut ten times in quick succession, wincing at the burn of returning blood.

Surprisingly, it was not Soren who descended the stone steps, but a young-faced guard with amber eyes and a sweep of messy hair, dressed in the plain armour of the palace guard.

Gren scrutinized the guard's features a moment longer before recognition settled in.

One of the Home Guard's newest recruits, graduated in the Spring. What was his name again – _Marcos._

"Good morning, Marcos," Gren said genially, and the young man jolted so badly he nearly upset the tray of gruel and water in his hands.

Marcos's eyes snapped to Gren's. "I'm not supposed to talk to you, sir," he whispered, almost mouthing the words in his effort to be quiet.

 _Sir._ That was a good sign. Gren tilted his head. "So I gather it _is_ morning?"

Marcos did not reply, but placed the tray to the side and stepped out of Gren's line of vision; a moment later, Gren's chains lengthened enough that his arms, though still bound, dropped completely to his sides.

Gren half-collapsed to the floor, knees, feet, and everything from shoulder to fingertips aching.

Armoured boots slid into his field of vision again and placed a wide chamberpot in front of him.

Gren looked at it and groaned. At least Marcos looked away as he did what he needed to.

The chamberpot was pulled away, and the tray placed in front of Gren. Marcos's hand indicated the bowl and pitcher.

Gren rubbed his wrists once more, and set to eating. The gruel was thin and watery and the water had a metallic aftertaste, but it was food and he was not about to waste it. As he ate, he stole surreptitious glances at the guard.

Marcos had moved a few paces away towards the spiral stair, as if by standing as close to it as possible he could prove to any who chose to enter that he was _not speaking to the prisoner at all, oh no._

"Thanks for the food," Gren began, conversationally. "Has any work been done to find the princes?"

Marcos startled, and his eyes slid to meet Gren's momentarily before snapping back to the opposite wall. "Not supposed to talk to you, sir," he repeated.

Gren paused. "Well, I'm sure a smart person like you can find a way around it."

It took a moment, but Marcos shook his head, carefully.

"So Soren hasn't ridden out yet."

Marcos shook his head again, no more than a single sideways jerk of his chin.

Gren finished up his breakfast. As Marcos stepped over to him to pick up the tray, Gren's hand darted out and clasped around the younger man's wrist.

Gren sighed inwardly as he took in the shock and raw fear on Marcos's face. "Calm down," he said, quietly. "I need you see a message sent to the Breach for me."

Marcos shook his head so vehemently that his armour plates clanked together.

Gren wondered for a moment at the young guard's thoughts. Gren's other hand was unoccupied, and the chain running from it was long enough to pool over the floor by their feet – and so long enough to wrap around Marcos's neck, if he wished.

Of course, it wasn't as if Gren would do such a thing, but the fact that Marcos hadn't thought about it probably meant that Viren thought his life expendable.

What had Viren expected? Had he sent this young and green guard down to Gren as if saying, _You can take the sword at his side if you wish to. Just kill him?_

"Marcos, this is for Katolis," Gren sighed.

Marcos's cheeks darkened with colour, and he had the grace to look ashamed. But it seemed that shame was enough to push him to speak, at least. "I don't have the key," he murmured.

"I don't need you to release me," Gren whispered, urgently. "I need word sent to General Amaya."

"Even if I wished–" Marcos's eyes slid away. "Lord Viren has a chokehold on all letters in and out of the citadel," he said. "I won't get away, or any other rider."

Gren released Marcos's wrist, and the younger man stumbled back, rubbing at his left bracer.

"I'm sure you can think of something," Gren said, as Marcos gathered the tray.

"I'm sorry, sir," Marcos mumbled, stepping around him to tighten the chains, this time feeding them through a wooden board over his head so they were even tighter than before; Gren grimaced as the strain on his shoulders and wrists flared anew.

"Please," Gren said, and Marcos's eyes flashed to his and away again.

"I'm sorry, sir, orders," Marcos repeated. "I'm sorry. I can't talk to you."

And then he was gone, and nothing remained except the burning in Gren's wrists, the numbness of his fingers and the fog of exhaustion that threatened to claim him.

* * *

Viren came and went.

Gren found it harder and harder to stand. There were short reprieves every morning and evening – or so he assumed those were the times Marcos came with food – but the guard refused to speak to him, everything in the set of his shoulders showing fear of retribution. But he let Gren nap for ten-minute stretches every meal, at least.

The only thing that took Gren's mind off the struggle to preserve his hands was the fact that he soon figured out the other prisoner down the corridor ahead was a Moonshadow elf – and not just any one.

King Harrow had died by this elf's hand.

But from the echoes of speech that Gren could hear whenever Viren visited the elf, Viren was less concerned that this was the murderer of his best friend and more occupied with prying for magical information – something about a mirror.

Gren frowned.

Viren's complete apathy made sense. The rest did not.

But then the tenor of Viren's voice changed as it filtered to him across the length of the dungeon, and Gren froze, listening.

"What a beautiful challenge you've given me." Viren said, all intrigued delight and intellectual satisfaction. "I must come up with something you will fear…more than death."

Gren closed his eyes briefly. The fact that Viren was willing so say something so chilling – even to an enemy of Katolis – spoke volumes of his true character.

The sharp, metallic sound of sceptre meeting stone grew louder, and Gren raised his head just in time to catch Viren appearing in the opposite archway. The man passed him with nary a glance, but Gren called out after him – some nonsense about the Xadian fruit in Viren's hands, and although Viren treated him as though he were nothing more than a yapping dog, it was worth it to keep up pretense that he had no ruminations of escape.

In the silence after, Gren took a breath. Weighed his words. And when he spoke, it helped clear some of the fog of exhaustion over his eyes.

"I'm not going to ask what your name is," he called, letting his voice ring down the stone towards the cell on the far end of the corridor. "I know well enough that you do not wish to reveal it. But I'm a prisoner like you are, and I thought you might like to talk."

Nothing.

Well, it was only expected. Gren took another breath, shifted his aching shoulders. "Why did you kill the king?"

Silence.

Gren closed his eyes. "Ah," he said, softly. "Because we killed yours."

It made sense. It was even cruelly logical, in warfare: a proportionate response.

There was no answer, but Gren thought he heard the clinking of chains far ahead, as though the elf had shifted.

"I was there," Gren said. "I was there, last Winter's Turn."

The chains groaned against stone, and Gren knew he had an audience.

And then, so softly that Gren almost missed it: "Did you have a hand in it?"

"The killing of Thunder?" Gren paused. "No. I am no warrior."

A single, barking laugh, ragged from a throat completely dry. "You lie. I've heard them call you Commander."

"Well, that is my rank," Gren sighed. "But I don't do much fighting. I'm a sign language interpreter."

A pause, and then, in a growl so low and filled with hatred that Gren felt his hackles rise: "You're the general's companion. The one who bears no weapon."

It was…strange, to hear that this was the way the Xadian forces thought of him. But it was also comforting. He would have expected them to call him her servant, her lieutenant – but to be her companion was a hidden blessing.

That tone, though, needed exploration.

"You sound as though you don't like me very much," Gren said, mildly.

The sound of spit against stone. "Your general killed hundreds of our people!"

"So have you, I take it," Gren countered. "Elven assassin, aren't you?"

"You serve a murderer," the growl came.

"Don't we all," Gren sighed. He couldn't feel his fingertips anymore, and no matter how he tried to move his hands they were sluggish to respond. His chains rang against the wall and his manacles in a maddening, useless cacophony.

Gren sighed. Stilled. Then: "What's up with your hand?" Viren had said something about it, earlier.

The silence grew a little colder.

"I should think that as an assassin, your hands would matter," Gren murmured. "…As mine do."

But the elf did not respond, and Gren was left to the endless repetition of moving his hands as much as they could, systematically, pushing away the fear in his heart that with each moment he remained shackled to the wall, the damage to his hands increased.

* * *

When Viren came again, he entered by another archway, pushing a tall, cloth-covered shape ahead of him.

Gren had taken to whistling to keep himself awake – anything to counter the sagging of his weight against his shackles – and he raised his aching head to watch as Viren disappeared into the far corridor.

There was a cryptic exchange between Viren and the elf regarding a mirror of some kind, and the clatter of metal against stone floors; and then, a chanting of a many-layered voice, louder and louder until the walls seemed to shake with it, and rising into a crescendo underneath: wild, agonised screams.

Gren strained against his bonds, leant as far forward as he could to peer into the darkened corridor.

A sickening purple glow bled out of the half-open door at the end of it; a colour Gren had seen only once before, on the battlefield of last Winter's Turn, when a lance of fire that exact shade had struck down the King of Dragons.

The screams cut off abruptly.

Stillness.

And then a tall, lean-shouldered silhouette slipped into view. Gren's eyes caught the familiar long coat and high collar, but his breath caught as a purple glow filled the hallway again; from a pair of glowing eyes, no less.

 _By Katolis, Viren_. Gren stared. _What have you done._

The figure approached, and the full horror of what had just been done crashed down upon the chamber as it emerged into the light.

It was a twisting of nature. There was no other word for it; where Viren's eyes had been were now black, fathomless pits, with irises a purple so dark they were almost sable; grey-blue skin scored with darker scars covered what once was human. The colour of his hair had been leached away, leaving a metallic white that seemed more metal than hair.

Viren flicked out a coin from behind his back and examined it. "I always seem to capture the same expression," he mused, dispassionately. "Defiance…"

Gren breathed shallowly, stiffening as Viren turned to him.

"…Giving away to absolute fear," Viren relished.

It took a moment for Gren to realise what Viren held between his thumb and forefinger.

When he did, he could not stop the horror on his features.

Viren barked a laugh and ascended the stairs, flicking the coin into the air and catching it languidly, as though there was not an elven soul captured in it.

Gren thought he was going to be sick.

He closed his eyes, and breathed. The musty smell of the dungeon assaulted him anew. This development brought new information, yes. It also boded ill. There was now no possibility that Viren intended to let him go alive, not after what he had seen.

So.

There, a little further down his bracer than the band of numb flesh where the manacles pressed into his skin, his letter remained.

 _Amaya, in the event of my death._

Gren took a breath, and decided.

When Marcos came down the steps with food that night, he looked spooked. His hands were shaking ever-so-slightly where he clutched the tray.

"Marcos," Gren said.

Marcos shook his head, tight-lipped, and placed the tray on the floor.

" _Marcos,"_ Gren repeated, with a note of command.

The young guard looked away.

"I take it you've seen what he's become," Gren said.

Marcos looked like he almost jumped out of his skin. He went wordlessly to lengthen Gren's chains. Gren took that as answer enough.

"I have a question for you," he said, ignoring the food. His hands felt like they were on fire, and her rubbed them against each other as best he could. Already, his fingers were refusing to form a fist.

"I can't," Marcos murmured, so quietly and shamefully that Gren almost missed it.

"Yes, you can," Gren said, and there was nothing but steel in his voice. "I saw how he turned into…that. Do you really think he's going to let me live?"

Marcos studied his armoured boots.

"Here," Gren said. His clumsy fingers worked under his bracer, and pulled out a folded sheet of parchment: his letter. "Send word to General Amaya. Don't leave out a single detail of what's happened. But keep this letter with you until you have cause to believe I'm dead."

Marcos's eyes met his, wavering and hazel. "How…how would I know?"

Gren's lips twitched in dark humour. "You'll have no more orders to bring me meals."

The younger man still stared at the letter in Gren's hands, but did not reach for it.

Gren sighed. "For Katolis," he said.

Marcos's hands were shaking, but he reached for the letter and pocketed it.

Gren found himself wishing, illogically, for it back – for the comfort of knowing it was with him.

"Send word to General Amaya, and only send this letter if you are likely to have…died," Marcos repeated.

"Yes," Gren confirmed. He smiled. Marcos was a soldier of Katolis after all, it seemed; brave in the face of despair.

Marcos tapped the spot in his tunic where he had tucked the letter away, and nodded. "I'll try, sir," he said, seemingly drawing confidence from Gren's approval. "But I can't promise anything."

They spent the rest of Gren's meal in silence as Gren struggled with the utensils in his sluggish fingers, and Marcos looked at him apologetically as he tightened his bonds.

When the thud of closing door sounded high above, Gren leant his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. Exhaustion filled every inch of him, now; he could feel the siren call of true sleep tugging at his soul.

His wrists grew so quickly numb in their chains now that the temptation to give in, to crumble and let his hands take his weight, was overwhelming.

But his part in his mission was complete.

And he had sent his letter on, though he had no idea if it would ever reach Amaya. If Marcos sends it on, it would mean that Gren would have died.

A strange thing – Gren had never had delusions of having a long life, not when he had chosen to serve at the Breach. He had thought he would die by his General's side, willingly, but it was only now when he knew that returning to the fortress at the Breach would bring the culmination of all his hopes that he wished desperately to live, for no other reason than to see Amaya again.

He wished…

He wished he had not lied, last Winter's Turn. He wished that when he had whispered " _I love you,"_ into Amaya's embrace he had repeated his true words in sign instead of signing _I thank you._

He could have told her properly, so many times.

Gren's legs trembled; he knew they would give way soon, and there would be nothing further he could do to save his hands. His voice, when it came to Amaya; so he could speak to her as she could to him.

Viren was a cruel, cruel man. He had told the elf that it was a beautiful challenge to find something that one would fear worse than death.

For Gren, it was to lose his hands; the ability to sign, and interpret. His very purpose of living.

"Amaya," he whispered, and the name echoed into the empty dungeon without an answer, ghostly touches of her hands on his shoulders and her fingers in his, and he tried to fold his fingers around that phantom touch without success.

His letter was somewhere far above, tucked into the tunic of a young guard. Gren could recite the entire text verbatim; he had spent a sleepless night writing it not so long ago, when he had thought he could keep the letter with him for long years yet.

The words brought him comfort.

 _Amaya, in the event of my death:_

 _Dearest Amaya,_

 _I pen this letter a few months after Winter's Turn, when the King of Dragons fell. I confess that I do not know in what circumstances this letter might come to you – I hope that I will have had the opportunity to say what I put in this letter to you in person. You deserve truth, and heartfelt conversation face-to-face. But the events of last midwinter have led me to realise that life, after all, is fragile; I would have died on that frozen ground were it not for you, and I know that knowledge has weighed heavily on your mind in the months since, as it has mine._

 _So, I hope that this letter may serve in my absence. To speak where I cannot._

 _Amaya, I love you._

 _It feels almost strange to write it down like so when I have been thinking it in your presence every hour and every day since it first occurred to me, years ago when you took the blow to your head that left you with the scar on your right cheek. I was younger then, and I knew that it would be best to wait. And wait I have, in quiet and in battle, in joy and in sorrow._

 _I suppose I should explain how I came to love you, but I do not think I could; how do I explain how beautiful your words are when you capture them in your hands, or how I stumbled over myself like a fool just to hear you laugh? I'm not sure if I ever told you, but your laugh is one of the most beautiful things I have heard._

 _You were my general first. In my earlier months by your side I often stood astounded at your compassion and steel-fired will; it had not occurred to me before meeting you that one could be both at once. Gentleness and ferocity, kindness and command. And it was in discovering the depth of my regard for you that I realised I wished to remain by your side for as long as I could – to aid you and to serve, and to be your trusted confidant, as long as you wished._

 _I suppose that if you are reading this, I am gone. I do not know what took me – battle, sickness, or cruelty – but I know that you must be grieving. I hope that you will find the same peace we did before your sister's grave, before mine. Do not grieve too long, Amaya. Memory is precious in that with time, it grows fonder, just as each moment I spend with you now only adds to the regard I have for you. The fact I am gone does not diminish that love. And love is meant to be shared; with your nephews, with friends you may find in the future._

 _I will always love you, Amaya. I always have._

 _Ever yours,_

 _Gren_

As he recalled the final words of his letter, Gren felt his ankles give way at last. He hissed in pain as his legs collapsed under him; bereft of support, his shoulders and wrists jarred with his full weight, and he cried out despite himself.

He stared up at his slowly-whitening hands, and felt tears well up the corners of his eyes, blurring the images of his fingers until it appeared that he had no hands at all, only blurred shapes that grew number and colder by the moment.

And, like so, hanging as a puppet, he fell at last into an exhausted sleep.

* * *

 **Next up: Interludes between existing chapters! I have a couple in mind, and I'll get to the first after updating _The Silent Song_! I'm about 6000 words into the newest chapter of TSS and I expect at least 3000 more until the end of the chapter. We'll continue with the main story of _Waiting in the Quiet_ after season two of the Dragon Prince. ****Thanks for the reading, and leave a review if you'd like!**


	7. Interlude - Amaya, Winter's Turn

**A/N:** **Hey, everyone, done with an exam this morning so wrote this since it was requested on tumblr. We'll get started on season 2 after this!**

 **This is the latter part of chapter 4 from Amaya's perspective, when Gren took the bolt of lightning that temporarily stopped his heart.**

* * *

 _Chapter 7: Interlude - Amaya, Winter's Turn_

* * *

When Thunder fell, he shook the earth; a mountain of fallen white-blue, pierced through the heart with a spear of violet flame.

But Amaya only saw Thunder's last roar, as she had felt it in her breastbone where her ears did not hear – a lightning-lance of Thunder's own that crashed down amongst the edge of the forces of Katolis.

Then down came the king of dragons, in the blood and dust.

Amaya stood still.

She was sure–

She was sure, for a moment, that there among the soldiers where Thunder's last bolt of lightning fell, there had been the flash of strawberry hair.

It was impossible. She had ordered Gren to remain in the Fortress.

 _And yet–_

She ran. Circled the fallen dragon's massive bulk to where a few crumpled figures lay, burnt beyond all recognition. And there, among the stench of smoke, ginger hair and the deep blue of a half-cape–

–and Amaya slid to her knees in the churned mud by Gren's side, the icy air of Winter's Turn somehow burning colder in her suddenly frozen lungs.

 _No._

 _She had ordered him not to come._

Her commander lay half on his side in the bloodstained grime of the battlefield. Smoke curled lazily from a charred rent in his armour that ran from right shoulder to left boot, exposing the teal under-armour shirt beneath. Gren's face was calm and still; long-lashed eyes closed, humour-edged mouth shut, as though he were asleep.

Amaya blinked, hand jarring halfway to Gren's uninjured shoulder.

He wasn't breathing.

 _He wasn't–_

Amaya tore off her gloves and slid ice-fed fingers under Gren's collar. The skin there was still warm and hauntingly familiar to the touch; where her cheek would press whenever they hugged each other, as only the best and closest friends could.

But she felt no pulse.

She was moving before the horror could register.

She tore through Gren's smoking armour like parchment. No mere leather and metal could stand under her will, General of the Standing Battalion and sentinel of the Breach; she who was Katolis's last guard before the might of Xadia.

She had looked death in the eyes too many times to count. Death would not be victorious against her.

The material of Gren's shirt was horribly thin under her fingers as Amaya pressed the heel of one hand into his sternum and laced her other hand above; she leaned forward, her greaves grinding into congealing blood and mud, and forced her whole weight onto Gren's chest through her locked shoulders and elbows.

The give of a rib under her fingers nearly brought her to tears there and then, but she had no time to think of what abuse she was doing to her faithful commander's chest; the rhythm of the compressions took over in a maddening mantra of _please-please-please–_

Thirty compressions in, Amaya's sweat-slick fingers went to Gren's rapidly-cooling face and pinched his nose shut; her lips locked around his slack mouth and forced air from her own lungs into his, once, twice, looked for his falling chest then back to compressions, then nose, lips, air, hands, _nose, lips, air, hands–_

She became his heart and his breath.

Again, and again, until she tore off her own stifling mail and pressed on with the high collar of her under-armour shirt sticking to her neck.

The sky of Winter's Turn burned bright and merciless above; the ground bled fire and volcanic gases below. And under Amaya's fingers, her Gren – her most trusted commander, her closest friend – was slipping away.

Thunder had taken her sister from her – and now in his last act of bitter terror he had taken Gren, who knew her best in the world: her confidant and her voice.

She could not bear it.

Amaya's stomach roiled with exhaustion as she gasped in a last breath that sliced fire across her lungs and pushed all her hope between Gren's lips, holding his nose and tilting his chin with hands that trembled in their bracers.

Her back burned as she pulled back – her face no more than a hand-span from his features, searching for anything, anything at all. Her hands had slid away from his nose and chin, ready to resume driving blood around Gren's body – but they stilled now, one in his fiery hair and the other drawing a thumb-tip across his freckled cheekbone.

The breath slid out between Amaya's lips like a storm gale; gusts that shook her frame in the cold air of midwinter.

Gren was still.

The first of Amaya's tears hit the edge of his right eye, rolled off his eyelashes and trailed down his temple as though the tear were his own.

Amaya closed her eyes against the pain that tore at her throat, and leant closer to press gentle lips to Gren's forehead.

A goodbye.

And there, where her fingertips brushed the angle of Gren's jaw – a swell and decline under his skin, like the rise and fall of a storm surge. An exhale of air that was not her own against her tear-stained cheek; it ruffled her longer fringe at her chin, brushed it across her left cheekbone like a caress.

Amaya blinked away the moisture obscuring her vision, and stared.

The pulse under her fingers grew stronger, and steadier, and as she turned disbelieving eyes down to Gren's chest, the wrinkles on his shirt that her hands had formed now shifted as his chest rose and fell.

As it did again. And again.

Amaya's breaths turned to quickening hitches that drew fresh tears from the corners of her eyes: tears of unexpected relief. She spared a glance upwards. The battlefield around them was yet without much movement; the bulk of Thunder separated them from much of the vanguard of Katolis.

And below her hands, colour was returning to Gren's cheeks, like a warm sunrise behind the stars of his freckles.

Amaya's shoulders shook as she sat back to scrub at her face, her free hand fastening around Gren's wrist and the pulse-point there like a lifeline. Her sister's hand had been cold on the bier when Amaya took it, she remembered. Gren's wrist grew warmer moment by moment under her bare fingers, as did his cheek, smooth under the callouses of her sword-hand.

Amaya focused on the steady back and forth of her thumb over Gren's cheekbone, and used that to center her breathing.

Then there, above her fingers – movement behind Gren's eyelids.

Amaya snatched her hand back from his cheek.

A sliver of blue appeared between long lashes, and then just as suddenly Gren squeezed his eyes shut against the light and hissed in pain.

Amaya reached out again even before she registered what she was doing, and brushed away the stray tear that had slipped out of Gren's eyelids; he stilled at her touch, and blinked his eyes properly open, slowly.

For a moment, they simply stared at each other. General and commander, friend and interpreter, and… what more?

Then Gren's bruised lips opened to draw in a deeper breath, and Amaya saw the moment his injuries made themselves known to him.

She let go of him as he twisted under her touch. "You weren't breathing," she said, fingers flickering between each sign with far more calm than what she was currently feeling. "I couldn't find a pulse."

Gren stared up at her blankly, then down to his still-smoking armour by his feet where Amaya had flung it earlier – and finally, across and behind her to the mountainous body of the king of dragons.

Looking at him like this – her Gren, loyal to a fault and still trying to make sense of everything despite the pain he must be in – Amaya felt his absence at her fingertips like her lungs craved air.

She needed to reassure herself that this was real.

Gren's breath hitched as she leant over him and wrapped her arms around his neck. She buried her face into the crook of his shoulder and breathed in his scent even as she felt him automatically raise an arm to wrap around her shoulders. What remained of her tears began to soak into the collar of his shirt, but Amaya could not bring herself to care.

She knew the moment he understood the severity of what had transpired, because he wrestled to sit up and was suddenly embracing her in return with as much desperation as hers. The shape of his eyes and nose, so familiar to her, buried itself in her hair as his arms bled warmth into her aching back.

Gren's pulse beat strong and steady at her temple, and his breath ruffled her hair. Where her nose pressed into his shoulder, she could smell the lingering smoke of lightning and Thunder's breath – but there also was her commander' scent: ink, parchment, and the faint sweetness of the strawberries he so loved to filch from the fortress kitchens. This, more than the feel of his arms wound as tightly around her as hers were around him, reassured Amaya that he was alive. Battered, bruised, but _alive._

She had wrested him from the edge of the abyss with naught but her hands and her breath and her will.

Mere months ago when he had declared that he was moving out of the rooms beside hers in the fortress keep she had thought nothing of the added distance; _for the sake of propriety_ , he had all but said, and smiled one of his peculiar smiles when she had hugged him and said that she didn't care but he should do so if it made him happy.

It was one of those smiles that seemed to hold a veiled sort of pain – pain that presented itself when she laughed with him, or laid her head on his shoulder when they stargazed, or smiled at him after a good day's work was done.

Amaya still did not understand the meaning behind that smile – it grieved her at times to think that her dearest friend was in pain.

But she knew now that to lose Gren would be her utter ending.

Gren's breath trembled against her temple, and Amaya felt him speak three distinct syllables through the vibrations in his chest; but she could not lip-read them, not with her face pressed against his shoulder like this.

She pushed herself back with an effort and looked up at him with the question in her gaze.

What she saw in his eyes took her breath away.

Gratitude. Loyalty. Sorrow, for causing _her_ sorrow. And…something else. Something she could not identify.

"I thank you," he said, with his mouth, shapes familiar to her.

Still in a half-embrace as they were, Amaya felt the sounds she could not hear tremble in his side; the second syllable felt different to her touch as it did before. Had Gren truly said _thank?_

But the raw emotion in Gren's gaze only reminded Amaya of her own desperate fear – so foreign compared with the calm confidence she usually led her troops with – and she pulled him back into their embrace. He folded her back into the circle of his hold, his usual restraint gone.

The air of Winter's Turn was cold.

But this was…warm.

Amaya's eyes closed, and her world narrowed to the feel of Gren's heartbeat, his breath in her hair, and their arms, clasped so tightly around each other that she must surely be hurting him.

She let go of her remaining thoughts and was just… _was._ There. With Gren.

She did not open her eyes. If she had, she might have seen Corvus order a circle of Standing Battalion veterans to form a circle around them to shield them from prying eyes.

But Amaya, General of the Standing Battalion, sister to the Queen of Katolis, sister-in-law to the King, aunt to the princes, simply rested in the fact that her Gren – her Commander Gren was still alive.

* * *

 **A/N:** Next up, season 2...unless anyone has any more burning interlude suggestions!


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